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PORTRAIT OF A. H. FRANCKE. 



The 
Story of Lutheran Missions 



BY 



ELSIE SINGMASTER 

(Mrs. Elsie Singmaster Lewars) 



Published by 

Co-operative Literature Committee Woman's Missionary Societies 

Lutheran Church 






Copyright, 1917 

By the 

Co-operative Literature Committee Woman's Missionary Societies 

Lutheran Church 




PRESS OF 

SURVEY PUBLISHING CO., 

COLUMBIA, S. C. 



©CI A 4 (32 02 4 

I 



FOREWORD 

For many years there has been both a need and a call 
for a book on Lutheran missions, which could be used 
as a text book and also as a book of reference. Mrs. 
Lewars has met this need and answered this call with 
The Story of Lutheran Missions, It is fitting that 
this book should make its appearance in the Quadri- 
centennial Year of the Reformation and that it should 
be the first book issued by the first Co-operative Litera- 
ture Committee of the Woman's Missionary Societies 
of the Lutheran Church, representing the General 
Synod, the General Council, and the United Synod in 
the South. 

The courage and devotion of our self-sacrificing mis- 
sionary pioneers has been little known even among 
Lutherans. Our hearts must be thrilled as we read of 
the superb courage and the unselfish devotion of the 
brave men and women who, surrounded by indiffer- 
ence were fired with unquenchable missionary zeal to 
carrjang the Word to the ends of the earth. 

'^Through peril, toil and pain,'' they blazed the way 
for Protestant missions. May this study of the Refor- 
mation of the sixteenth century and the subsequent 
efforts to carry the Word into all of the world help to 
unite our Lutheran forces in a determined missionary 
purpose to hasten the transformation of the twentieth 
century. 

Co-operative Literature Committee: 
Mrs. E. C. Cronk, Chairman, Member from United Synod. 
Miss Sallie Protzman, Member from General Synod. 
Mrs. Chas. L. Fry, Member from General Council. 

Literature Headquarters for Missionary Societies: 
General Synod, 105 E. 21st St., Baltimore, Md. 
General Council, 844 Drexel Building, Philadelphia, Pa. 
United Synod, 1617 Sumter St., Columbia, S. C. 



CONTENTS 

Foreword 

List of Illustrations 

Chapter I — The Beginnings 3 

Chapter II — Pioneers and Methods 29 

Chapter III — The Lutheran Church in India 71 

Chapter IV — The Lutheran Church in Africa 115 

Chapter V — The Lutheran Church in China, 

Japan and Elsewhere 159 

Chapter VI — Lutheran Foreign Missions on 

the V/estern Continent 199 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

Facing 

Page 

Portrait of A. H. Francke Frontispiece 

Bartholomew Ziegenbalg r VIII 

Christian Frederick Schwartz VIII 

Louis Harms 9 

Hermannsburg Parsonage 9 - 

John Evangelist Gossner 24 

Men's Bathing Ghat at Purulia 24 

Stall High School for Girls, Guntur, India 33 

Faculty of Watts Memorial College for Men, Guntur 33 

Hospital for Women and Children, Guntur 41 

Hospital for Women and Children, Rajahmundry ... 56 

Central Girl's School, Rajahmundry 64 

Chapel of Leper Asylum, Kodur, India. (Joint Synod 

of Ohio) 73 

Inmates of Leper Asylum 73 

All India Lutheran Conference in 1914. Delegates 

from Eight Missions 88 

A Malagasy Witch Doctor 97 

Native Lutheran Ministers in Madagascar 97 

Main Station at Muhlenberg, Liberia, Africa 105 

Girls of Emma V. Day School, Muhlenberg, Africa . . 122 

Carrying Water and Sewing in Garden 122 

Central China Lutheran Theological Seminary, Shekow, 

Hupeh, China 128 

Chapel and Mission Homes, Chikungshan, China. 

(United Norwegian) 128 

Administration Building and Class Rooms, Kyushu 

Gakuin, Kumamoto, Japan 137 



Pastor's Residence, Chapel, and Student Dormitory, 

Tokyo. American Missionaries, Native Pastors 

and Workers with Wives and Children 137 

First Graduating Class from Kindergarten at Ogi, 

Japan 152 - 

Group of Theological Students, Kumamoto 152 

Lutheran Church in Borneo 161 

Lutheran Church in Java 161 

Officers and Teachers of Lutheran Sunday School, New 

Amsterdam, British Guiana 192 

Ituni School in School Room Which is Also the Church 192 

Some Indian Members of Ituni Congregation 192 

Lutheran Chapel, Monacillo, Porto Rico, with Two 

Missionaries and Two Native Workers 201 

Porto Rican Hut with Miss Mellander and Three 

Members of Church at Palo Seco 201 . 

Immanuel Colored Lutheran College, Greensboro, 

North Carolina 216 

Bethany Indian Mission Band, Wittenberg, Wisconsin 

(Norwegian Synod) 216 



PREFACE 

The author acknowledges her indebtedness to the 
many persons who have furnished data for The Story 
of Lutheran MissionSj and to those who have read 
the manuscript. The authojities consulted have been 
chiefly The History of Protestant Missions by Gustav 
Warneck, D.D., The History of Chirstian Missions 
by C. H. Robinson, D.D., The History of Lutheran 
Missions by the Rev. Preston A. Laury, Geschichte 
der evangelischen Heidenmission by R. Gareis, The 
Lutheran Encylopedia and the Enclyopedia of Mis- 
sions, beside numerous magazine articles and reports. 
Only enough statistics have been included to indicate 
the size of each mission. With the book should be 
used such admirable books and pamphlets as Mission- 
ary Heroes of the Lutheran Church, Our First De- 
cade in China, The United Norwegian Mission Field 
in China, Our Colored Mission, Our India Story, 
and the many interesting illustrated mission reports. 
Above all, maps should be constantly referred to. 

If the study of The Story of Lutheran Missions 
gives to the reader, as its preparation has given to 
the author, a sense of the essential unity of the Lu- 
theran Church and a renewed love for her and her his- 
tory, it will achieve its purpose. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Beginnings 

The Purpose of the Book. 

The Missionary Impulse. 

The Benefits of Missionary Study. 

The Plan of Salvation. 

Salvation Intended for the Whole World. 
Israel's Conception of God's Purpose. 
The Jev^^ as a Missionary. 

The Septuagint. 

The Roman Empire. 

The Supreme Missionary. 

The Sending of the Disciples. 

Paul. 
The Early Church. 

Its Extent. 

A Change in Method. 

Early Missionaries. 

The Church and State. 

Boniface. 

The Church of Germany. 

Martin Luther. 

''What must I do to be saved?" 

An Answer Found. 

A New Evangel. 

A Pure and Living Stream. 

The Bible Translated. 

Luther and Missions. 

The Beginnings of Lutheran Missions. 

In Europe and Asia. 
In Africa. 
In North America. 
In South America. 

Justinian von Welz. 

His Appeal Ridiculed. 

A Martyr. 

A Hero. 



The Spring at Hand. 
Philip Spener. 
A. H. Fiancke. 
The School at Halle. 
The First Missionary Hymn. 



Chapter I. 

THE BEGINNINGS 

Purpose of ^^ ^^ ^^^ object of this book to give a 

the Book. general survey of the missionary labors 

of the Lutheran Church in all lands. A knowledge 
of the work of our own Church is of first importance, 
both that we may be well informed concerning those 
enterprises which we support and that we may through 
them become interested in the achievements of other 
churches. 

This account of Lutheran missions cannot be ex- 
haustive. Volumes have been written upon the 
history of many Lutheran missions. Many names 
which deserve record must be omitted and those he- 
roes who have been selected for mention are no more 
devoted, no more noble than many others whose names 
are lost to human recollection. 

^, Even if the specific commands of our 

Missionary Lord were lacking, we believe that 

^^^ ^^* every good Christian would find 

in his own heart a missionary impulse which could 
not be denied. There is no good new^s which we do 
not hasten to tell ; the man who would withhold from 
his neighbors that which would benefit them is right- 
ly condemned. Would it not be strange if we told all 



4 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

good news but the greatest? The Christian has found 
peace and life and hope in the Gospel, surely it is 
his duty and it should be his chief joy to tell the good 
news to others. 

Th B fit '^'^^ study of missions is a fascinating 
of Missionary pursuit. Its subject matter is the no- 
Study, {^jgg^ jj^ ^j^g world — the history of the 

evangelizing and Christianizing of mankind. The 
characters are heroes and heroines. The effect of 
such study is not only inspiring but improving. The 
student will gain through diligent attention to the 
courses offered by mission boards a mass of general 
information which could be gained so easily in no 
other way. He will visit all the countries of the 
world; he will hear something of their history, their 
geography, their flora and fauna. He will see Eliot 
and Campanius preaching to the American Indians, he 
v/ill see Hans Egede laboring among the Greenland- 
ers, he will hear of the wise colonial policy of Eng- 
land, of the amazing devotion and great learning of 
the Germans, he will observe the daily life of the mis- 
sion stations where the sick are healed, where lepers 
are cared for, where to everyone the Gospel is preached. 
The opening of windows into the wide world is not 
the least of the rewards for a study of missions. 

Before beginning the actual history of Lutheran 
missions we will review briefly Christian missions be- 
fore the establishment of the Protestant Church, so 
that the student may connect the present with the 
past. 



THE BEGINNINGS 6 

^ , . ^ Christ did not present to the Jews the 
Salvation In- , ^ ^ . 

tended for the first intimation of salvation for the 

Whole World, ^^.j^^i^ ^^^^.^^ j^s^ ^5 ^H spiritual 

truths which He elaborated and fulfilled were shad- 
owed forth in the Old Testament, so was the mis- 
sionary idea. Here we find the hidden seeds, the 
promises and prophecies w^hich were to mature and 
to be fulfilled in the New Testament. God is re- 
vealed as the Creator of the whole world. It was 
all mankind which sinned in Adam, the mankind which 
God had made *^of one blood". Saint Paul makes 
clear to the Ephesians the fact that the Gentiles are 
*'fellow heirs and fellow members of the body". God 
said to Abraham that in him should *'all the fami- 
lies of the earth be blessed." 
I V C ' Gradually in the nation of Israel there 

ception of developed the idea of a new covenant 

God^s Purpose, ^f ^^^^^^ ^j^j^ ^j^^ ^^^^^j^ ^f ^j^j^^ 

idea it became more and more clear to Israel's proph- 
ets and seers that Israel was the center of a great 
kingdom which God should gather from all nations. 
Many testimonies may be found to this new con- 
sciousness. 'Tor the earth shall be filled with the 
knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters 
cover the sea." "For from the rising of the sun 
even unto the going down of the same, my name shall 
be great among the Gentiles." In the Prophet Jonah 
we have an Old Testament missionary, proud and un- 
willing, but a witness, nevertheless, to the fact that 



6 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

God's mercy extended not alone to Israel but to all 
His works. 

The Jew as Unconsciously to themselves the Jews 
a Missionary, were engaged in missionary work. 
Trained in seclusion, then carried into captivity or 
trading in all known quarters of the world, they con- 
tinued to worship the living God. They worshipped 
Him in private and in public, their synagogues ris- 
ing plain and austere among the impure temples of 
the heathen deities. Long-suffering, devout, faithful, 
they did God's great task. 

About two hundred years before the 

The Septuagint. i . i f r-«i • it tit 

birth or Uhrist the Jews accomphshed 

an important missionary work. They were now no 
longer in Judea alone, but lived all over the Roman 
Empire. For this scattered host the rabbis translated 
the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, the common speech. 
The translation is called the Septuagint because it 
was made by seventy men. Here is the first great 
spreading of the Living Word. The Septuagint was 
read not only by the Jews but by many learned Greeks, 
who, while they did not accept its teachings, yet ad- 
mired its eloquence. One of the greatest factors in 
the success of the early Christian Church was this ac- 
quaintance of the Greeks with the Hebrew Scriptures. 
The Roman ^^^ the fulfillment of Old Testament 
Empire. prophecies the world was preparing in 

other ways. The Roman Empire was at the height 
of its power, its roads led everjrvvhere, it had pushed 
back the boundaries of the world, it was adding to 



THE BEGINNINGS 7 

itself great barbarian nations, little dreaming that all 
its pride was to serve the will of the Hebrew's God ! 
The Supreme When the time was ripe, God sent 
Missionary. His Son into the world, the Supreme 

Missionary. To convince a doubter of the divine au- 
thority for missions, one need go no farther than to 
point to Christ's earthly life. 

The Disciples J^^t as God had sent His Son into 
Sent Abroad. the world, so Christ sent abroad His 
disciples. Their appointment was made directly by 
Him. The command is positive. *'A11 authority hath 
been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye 
therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing 
them into the name of the Father and of the Son 
and of the Holy Ghost." ''Thus it is written, and 
thus it behooved Christ to suffer. . . . that repentance 
and remission of sins should be preached in His name 
among all nations beginning at Jerusalem." *'As my 
Father hath sent me, even so send I you." ''Ye shall 
receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come 
upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in 
Jerusalem and all Judea, and in Samaria and unto 
the uttermost parts of the earth." 
^j^ j^ , J We have in the Acts of the Apostles 
Their Mission- a record of the work of the first mis- 
ary Work. sionaries appointed by Christ. It de- 

scribes the disciples gathered together waiting for the 
promise of the Father. It describes the pentecostal 
visitation with its mighty wind, its tongues of fire, its 



8 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

Strange speech, Parthians and Medes and Elamites, 
Mesopotamians, Judeans and Cappadocians, Asians, 
Egyptians, Cretans and Arabians speaking each in 
his own tongue "the mighty works of God". It tells 
the history of the Church, of its early work in Je- 
rusalem, of its miracles and persecutions, of the death 
of its first martyr. It tells of the missionary work of 
Peter among the Jews, the beginning of work among 
the Gentiles. It tells of the conversion of one Saul, 
a Jew, who had been laying waste the new Church. 

In the crises of history, great charac- 
Saint Paul. i , . , 

ters seem to be almost a special cre- 
ation. Such a man was Lincoln, such a man 
was Luther, such a man was the apostle Paul. 
Paul was a Jew of the straitest sect of the 
Pharisees who had kept the most minute pro- 
vision of the law and who had felt that the lavv 
was unable to solve the problem of sin. He was ac- 
quainted also with the wisdom of the Greeks. To 
him it became clear after his conversion that in Christ 
lay the fulfillment of the Jewish law and the way of 
salvation for mankind. 

To those outside the law Paul became the 
first missionary. Through his teaching Christianity 
was made a universal religion, by his personal work 
he evangelized a large part of Asia Minor and the 
chief cities of Greece. His accomplished task was but 
a small part of that which he planned. His long- 
ing eyes turned toward the West, toward the ''ut- 
most ramparts of the world''. When the sword of 



LOUIS HARMS. 
HERMANNSBURG PARSONAGE. 



THE BEGINNINGS 9 

the executioPxer ended his life in Rome, only a small 
part of his dreams had been realized. 
The Early ^^^ ^^^Y ^^^ apostles but the whole of 

Church. the early Christian Church was filled 

with the missionary spirit. To that early period our 
eyes turn with longing desire to penetrate farther 
into the story of devotion, of passion for the things 
of Christ, of persecution, of martyrdom and of even- 
tual triumph. To us glorious and pathetic relics re- 
main in tradition, in a few written accounts and in 
inscriptions on tombs and funeral urns. In Thes- 
sonalica (now Saloniki), that city in which Paul and 
Barnabas w^ere said to have '^turned the world upside 
down,'' were found two funeral urns of this period. 
Upon one was the inscription *'No hope" ; on the other, 
^'Christ my life." What a mighty hope had been born 
in the hearts of men ! 

It is impossible to know exactly the 

Its Extent. . , r ^ /-^^ ' ' r-r\ i 

Size and extent or the Christian Church 
at any of the early periods of its history. It is esti- 
mated by the conservative that at the end of the First 
Century there v/ere in the Roman Empire two hun- 
dred thousand Christians, and at the end of the Second 
perhaps eight millions, which was about one fifteenth 
of the population. By the time of the Emperor Con- 
stantine, Christianity had become so vast in its ex- 
tent and so tremendous in influence that he made it 
in 313 A.D. the State Church of the Empire. 
A Change -^^ ^^^ Study the history of the Chris- 

in Method. tian Church during the next centuries, 

we observe a new method of Christianizing. The 



10 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

apostles had built up small churches, had watched and 
nourished them, had chidden the backsliders, had per- 
mitted no sacrifice of the cardinal Christian principles. 
Now there were added to the Empire barbarian coun- 
tries upon whose people the Christian religion was im- 
posed, Avhether or not they were truly converted, 
whether or not, indeed, they were willing to receive 
it. There were not lacking, of course, many individ- 
ual conversions, there were not lacking hundreds of 
Christians who labored with apostolic diligence and 
devotion and who doubtless deplored the growing un 
ion of their religion with the corrupt politics of a great 
empire. 

Early Among the famous missionaries of this 

Missionaries. period were Gregory, the Illuminator, 
a missionary to the Armenians about the year 300; 
Ulfilas, who invented a Gothic alphabet so that he 
might translate the Scriptures into Gothic; Chrysos- 
tom, w^ho founded in Constantinople a missionary in- 
stitution, and Saint Patrick, who converted Ireland. 
From the secluded churches of Ireland and the Scot- 
tish Highlands there went forth to Iceland, to the 
Faroe Islands, and far into the barbarian sections of 
the Empire a new band, Columba, Aidan, Columbanus 
and Trudpert. From the young English Church went 
Wilfrid to Friesland, Willibrord to the neighborhood 
of Utrecht, and Boniface to Germany. Further to 
the east the Gospel was proclaimed under fearful dif- 
ficulties. At one time it seemed that Christianity 
might become one of the religions of old China. 



THE BEGINNINGS 11 

Church Gradually the alliance of the Church 

and State. and State came to its inevitable con- 

clusion. The Church began to share the ambitions of 
the State. Christianity armed itself with the sword 
and strove to wrest from the Moslem the sepulcher of 
the Prince of Peace. A measure of the true spirit of 
the Nazarene remained in such as Raymond Lull, who 
protested against extending God's kingdom by the 
sword and testified to his convictions by giving up his 
life. The great missionary societies of the Church, 
the Jesuit, the Dominican, the Capuchin, accepted in 
the main the Church's theory of conquest, a theory 
made enormously advantageous by the discovery of 
new continents. The missionary enterprises of Spain 
and Portugal were marked by hideous oppression of 
those who would not accept the offered religion. 

Upon the ministers of the Church the alliance with 
the State v/rought its evil effect. The ambitions of 
a bishop of Rome led him in 442 to ask the weak 
Emperor that he be made the head of western Chris- 
tendom. Henceforth the See of Rome grew more 
and more powerful. The Church lost entirely the 
democratic quality of its early life. Pope Gregory 
claimed toward the end of the Eleventh Century that 
he had power not only over the souls of men but over 
all rulers. The lives of great prelates grew evil, the 
administration of ecclesiastical affairs venal, the pure 
Gospel was obscured. A mistaken emphasis was put 
upon good works as a means of winning that forgive- 
ness of sin which God had promised for Christ's sake. 



12 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

Before the missionary stream could flow for the bless- 
ing and healing of mankind, a clear passage must be 
opened to its Source. 

Among the missionaries who had set 
out full of zeal from the English 
Church in the Eighth Century was Boniface, a man 
of extraordinary energy and power. Among the fields 
in which he worked was that of Thuringia in Ger- 
many. Here, among the dark forests, encouraged 
and supported by the Pope and by the ruler, Charles 
Martel, he preached the Gospel, converting thousands 
and binding them to Rome. With the Gospel he gave 
them a new sort of superstition, an idolatrous rever- 
ence for Rome and a deep awe of the sacred relics 
which he brought with him. He established monas- 
teries, synods, schools, and required not only faith but 
knowledge of the forms of the Church, such as the 
Lord^s Prayer and the Creed. When an old man, he 
went to visit the country of Friesland which had re- 
jected his early preaching and there with his com- 
panions was murdered. 

The Church ^^^ Church, however, continued, 
of Germany. Closely bound to the great Roman See, 
it reproduced all the evils of that powerful organiza- 
tion. Here were the great celibate orders, here col- 
lections of relics, here a constant demand for money 
to build magnificent churches and to support an idle 
and ignorant priesthood. Here, especially, w^as a tre- 
mendous traffic in indulgences by which in exchange 
for money the sinner could secure not only release 



THE BEGINNINGS 13 

from penance on earth and pain in purgatory, but, 
to the minds of the ignorant, actual pardon for sin. 
The essential truths of Christ's teaching were forgot- 
ten while men busied themselves with a thousand non- 
essentials and found no peace for their souls. 

Now, as in other times of dire need God provided 
a man should point to the true way of salvation, 
lyf^j-tij^ In Germany, as well as in all other 

Luther. parts of the Church, there Vv^ere many 

simple, devout Christians whose superstition was un- 
derlaid by a deep and childlike faith. To two such 
pious souls, Hans and Margaret Luther, there was 
born in 1483, seven hundred years after Boniface had 
died, a son, Martin. Hans Luther was a poor miner 
who had moved before Martin's birth from Mohra to 
the village of Eisleben. For this son Hans and Mar- 
garet were ambitious. They wished him to pos- 
sess first of all a good character and to that end 
trained him strictly. His mother taught him simple 
prayers and hymns and that God for Christ's sake 
forgives sin. They wished in the second place that 
the lad should rise above their humble estate and for 
that reason sent him to school, first to Mansfield and 
Magdeburg, then to Eisenach. 

University When he w^as eighteen years old Mar- 

^^ys- tin entered the University of Erfurt. 

His father had become more prosperous and continued 
in his determination that the boy should have every 
possible opportunity. 



14 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

Luther was popular among his mates. He won his 
bachelor's then his master's degree and began the study 
of the law for which his father intended him. Sud- 
denly with crushing disappointment to that ambitious 
father and to the amazed disapproval of his friends, 
he abandoned together the study of the law and the 
world itself and entered a monastery. 

uTXTi_ ^ HIT ^ It had not been his studies alone which 
''What Must 

I Do to be had occupied the young man during his 
Saved. university course, but meditation upon 

the needs of his own despairing soul. We have every 
evidence that he led a pure and godly life, yet the 
weight of that sin to which all mankind is heir lay 
heavily upon him. To a man of his time there was but 
one way of escape — the monastery, in which he might 
work out his salvation. Vowed to celibacy, to pov- 
erty, to obedience, devoting himself to prayer and fast- 
ing, he might hope to be saved. 

If "Brother Augustine," as he was called, had any 
fault as a monk, he erred upon the side of too strict 
obedience. He followed all the rules of the order, he 
fasted, he scourged himself cruelly. But still he found 
no peace. God appeared to him an implacable judge, 
whose laws it was impossible to keep. He wearied his 
fellow-priests with confessions and inquiries, but his 
heart was not at rest. 

Finally, however, he found an answer 

The Answer. ^ , . . -n i ^ 111 r 

to his question, rartly by the help ot 

his superiors, chiefly by the aid of the Scriptures, which, 

contrary to the custom of the time, he studied diligent- 



THE BEGINNINGS 15 

ly, he saw a new light. God was a kind Father who 
required only that his children should throw them- 
selves in faith upon His grace, accepting Christ's sac- 
rifice for them. Good works were simply the natural 
expression of a soul already reconciled with God and 
could have in themselves no merit. If one simply 
believed, one was justified by his faith. That this 
doctrine was not that of the Church, Martin did 
not realize. 

But he was soon to learn that his discovery was not 
acceptable to his superiors. There came into the neigh- 
borhood a monk, Tetzel by name, selling those induU 
gences which had become a menace to spiritual life. 
Against him and his traffic Luther protested, first in 
a sermon and then in a series of ninety-five theses 
which he nailed to the door of the Castle Church. 
A New T^^ s^l^ ^f indulgences began prompt- 

Evangel, ly to decline, and the money, intended 

partly for the building of St. Peter's Church at Rome, 
ceased to flow into the treasury. The local clergy 
took alarm, the alarm reached to Rome. Threatened, 
cajoled, greatly disturbed, but steadfast, Luther clung 
to his conviction. '^The Christian man who has true 
repentance has already received pardon from God al- 
together apart from an indulgence and does not need 
one; Christ demands true repentance from every one," 
said Luther. At once came a stern reply. It was the 
Pope and not Luther who had the right to decide 
this and all other questions. Thus reproved, Luther 
began to investigate the claims of the Pope upon the 



16 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

lives and fortunes of men. Excommunicated, threat- 
ened, with the fate of the martyr Huss in store for 
him, but gathering courage each day, he persisted 
until he had separated essentials from non-essentials 
and, thrusting aside the judgments and traditions of 
men, had founded his theology upon the Word of God. 
Teai'ing out the weeds of false doctrine and false prac- 
ticej he cleared the stream of the Gospel to its clear 
and living Spring, 

The Bible Luther not only opened the stream, 

Translated. but provided for its continued freedom. 

To his German people he gave their Bible. His was 
not the first German translation, but it was the first 
which was at once readable and true to the original. 
With the most painstaking care and with the aid of 
his friends, Luther prepared his version, drawn from 
the original languages, true to the German idiom, a 
joy to laity and scholars alike. 

Luther and The interest of Luther in missions has 

Missions. been the subject of much unnecessary 

discussion. There are fervent admirers who claim 
for him a missionary enthusiasm which he did not 
possess. There are others who deny for him all in- 
terest in this vital question. The truth lies midway. 
Missionary enterprise was not one of the first ac- 
tivities of the new Church, nor was it to be expected 
that it should be. The turmoil and difficulties con- 
nected with the establishment of the evangelical re- 
ligion occupied fully the minds of the reformers. Ger- 
many was practically an inland nation and a divided 



THE BEGINNINGS 17 

nation. It had no ships, no foreign possessions, 
no communication with the heathen world. There 
were not for the early Protestants as for the early 
Christians great Roman roads leading the imagination 
afar, there were no large cities where men of many 
nations touched elbows. The newly discovered lands 
were the possession of Catholic countries in whose do- 
main the new Gospel, w^hich was really the old Gos- 
pel, w^ould have had no hearing. 

Not only Luther but other reformers in other lands 
were concerned chiefly with the heathenized Church 
about them. For it they labored and prayed. The 
business of laying a sound foundation absorbed them. 
That the foundation was well laid, the missions of 
later centuries will show. In the words of Doctor 
Gustav Warneck: ^^The Reformation not only re- 
stored the true substance of missionary preaching by 
its earnest proclamation of the Gospel, but also brought 
back the whole work of missions to Apostolic lines." 
The There is always a difference of opin- 

Beginnings. Jon about the actual beginnings of a 

great work. Modern missions ofifer no exception to 
this rule. General historians are unwilling to find any 
indication that even in the Seventeenth Century the 
Church of the Reformation felt an obligation to 
heathen nations. Lutheran historians, searching the 
matter more thoroughly and with a less prejudiced 
spirit, have discovered various individuals to whom 
missions were a matter of deep concern. 



18 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

In Europe ^^ early as 1557, Primus Truber 

and Asia. translated into the language of the 

Croats and Wends to the east of Germany the Gos- 
pel, Luther's Catechism and a book of spiritual songs. 
In 1559, Gustavus Vasa, King of Sweden, and later 
Gustavus Adolphus, endeavored to bring into the Lu- 
theran Church the Lapps, who, though nominally 
Roman Catholic, had been in reality heathen, but the 
effort was not successful. Denmark, which had ac- 
quired possessions in India, provided for a minister to 
the colony, whose chief concern should be the spir- 
itual needs of the natives. The creditable undertak- 
ing was brought to naught by the wickedness of the 
appointed ministers. In 1658, Eric Bredal, a Nor- 
wegian bishop began preaching to the Lapps. Some 
of his assistants were killed; he died and his work 
came to no earthly fruitage. But the missionary spirit 
was none the less clearly exhibited. 

In 1634 Peter Heiling of Liibeck 
In Africa. . , a 1 • • 

journeyed to Abyssmia to try to rouse 

once more the churches of the East whose spiritual 
life had almost ceased. There, after translating the 
New Testament into Amharic, he died a martyr. 
In North I^ 1 638 the Sv/edes established **New 

America. Sweden'' on the banks of the Delaware 

River in America. That there existed in their minds 
an interest in the spiritual welfare of the Indians sur- 
rounding them is recorded in one of the resolutions 
for the government of the colony. ''The wild nations 



THE BEGINNINGS 19 

bordering upon all other sides, the Governor shall un- 
derstand how to treat with all humanity and respect, 
that no violence or wrong be done to them. . . . but he 
shall rather, at every opportunity exert himself that 
the same wild people may gradually be instructed in 
the truths and worship of the Christian religion, and 
in other ways be brought to civilization and good 
government, and in this manner properly guided." 
Among the Swedish Lutheran pastors who obeyed this 
injunction was John Campanius who translated in 
1648 Luther's Small Catechism into the language of the 
Virginia Indians, a work which antedated by thirteen 
years the publication of John Eliot's translation of 
the New Testament for the Indians of Massachusetts. 
The work among the Indians lasted for over a hun- 
dred years. 
In South The most important name of the Sev- 

Amenca. enteenth Century in our study of Lu- 

Justinian von ^ ^ \ -^ 

Welz. theran missions is that of Justinian 

von Welz^ a German noblemen. To him there came 
clearly the true vision of the indissoluble relation of 
living Christianity and Christian missions. In 1664 
he issued two pamphlets, one bearing the title, ''An 
invitation for a society of Jesus to promote Christianity 
and the conversion of heathendom'^ the other ^'A 
Christian and true-hearted exhortation to all right- 
believing Christians of the Augsburg Confession re- 
specting a special association by means of which, with 
God's helpj our evangelical religion might be ex- 
tended'^ In the latter pamphlet there were such ques- 



20 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

tions as these: ^*Is it right that we evangelical Chris- 
tians hold the Gospel for ourselves alone?" "Is it 
right that in all places we have so many theological 
students, and do not induce them to labor elsewhere 
in the garden of the Lord?'' "Is it right that we evan- 
gelical Christians expend so much on all sorts of dress, 
delicacies in eating and drinking, etc., but have hith- 
erto thought of no means for the spread of the Gos- 
pel?" 

His Appeal When this appeal was met with op- 

Ridiculed, position and ridicule, von Welz issued 

a still stronger manifesto. He called upon the court 
preachers, the learned professors and others in author- 
ity to establish a missionary school where oriental lan- 
guages, the lives of the early missionaries, geography 
and kindred missionary subjects might be studied. 
Alas! von Welz was considered now more fanatical 
and insane than before. When he suggested the send- 
ing out of artisans and laymen to tell the Gospel story, 
since the learned and influential leaders would not go, 
he was thought to be quite mad. 

Forsaking his noble rank, this eager 
A Martyr. , , r i • 

soul turned away irom his own coun- 
try to Holland, where he found a minister to ordain 
him as "an apostle to the Gentiles". Arranging his af- 
fairs so that all his w^ealth might be applied to his 
great endevaor, he set sail as a missionary to Dutch 
Guiana in South America. There in a few months 
he found a lonely grave. 



THE BEGINNINGS 21 

In Justinian von Welz the Church of 
the Reformation possesses one of her 
worthiest and least known heroes. It was not until 
1786, more than a century later, that the Baptist Wil- 
liam Carey, considered the first standard bearer of 
modern missions, lifted up his admonishing voice. Of 
von Welz, Doctor Warneck, the greatest of all mis- 
sionary historians, speaks thus: *'The indubitable sin- 
cerity of his purposes, the noble enthusiasm of his 
heart, the sacrifice of his position, his fortune, his life 
for the yet unrecognized duty of the Church to mis- 
sions, insure for him an abiding place of honor in mis- 
sionary history." To him another German mission- 
ary historian pays this tribute: ^^Sometimes in a mild 
December a snow^ drop lifts its head, yet is spring far 
away. Frost and snow will hold field and garden in 
chains for many months. But have patience. Only a 
little while and Spring will be here!" 
The Spring ^^^ Welz's labors and prayers were 
at Hand. to bear fruit. His teaching sank into 

the hearts of some of those who read. In a period of 
dreary rationalism which followed there began to 
spring up the seeds which he had sowed. Missions 
became more and more a subject of discussion among 
learned men. Among those who gave the theories of 
von Welz his earnest attention was the German scien- 
tist Leibnitz who urged the sending of missionaries to 
China through Russia. When men began not onlv 
to think and to discuss but to pray, the Spring was 
really at hand. 



22 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

To tvv^o Lutherans above all other men 
Philip Spener. , , , i • i i 

the world owes the impulse to modern 

Protestant missions. If Philip Jacob Spener and Au- 
gust Herman Francke had not lived, the preaching of 
the pure Gospel to the heathen, already long delayed, 
would have had a still later Spring. 

Philip Spener was born in 1635 and died in 1705. 
He was a man of deep piety and great learning. Oc- 
cupying many important positions, among them that of 
court preacher at Dresden, he preached and taught 
constantly that pure living must be added to pure doc- 
trine, urging that the ''rigid and externalized'* or- 
thodoxy of the Church be transmuted into practical 
piety which should include Bible study and all sorts 
of Christian work. He held in his own house meet- 
ings for the study of the Bible and the exchanging of 
personal religious experiences. From the name of 
these meetings, collegia pietatisj the name of Pietists 
was given in ridicule to him and his followers. 

Among the practical manifestations of a true Chris- 
tion spirit which Spener urged was the sending of mis- 
sionaries to the heathen. On the Feast of the Ascen- 
sion he preached as follows: 

*'We are thus reminded that although every preacher 
is not bound to go ever5^where and preach, since God 
has knit each of us to his congregation, yet the ob- 
ligation rests on the whole Church to have care as 
to how the Gospel shall be preached in the whole 
world, and that to this end no diligence, labor, or 
cost be spared in behalf of the poor heathen and un- 



THE BEGINNINGS 23 

believers. That almost no thought has been given to 
this, and that great potentates, as the earthly heads 
of the Church, do so very little therein, is not to be 
excused, but is evidence how little the honor of Christ 
and of humanity concerns us; yea, I fear that in that 
day unbelievers will cry for vengeance upon Chris- 
tians who have been so utterly without care for their 
salvation." 

Most famous among the followers and 
admirers of Spener was August Her- 
man Francke, who was born in 1663 and died in 1727. 
He showed as a child extraordinary powers of mind, 
being prepared to enter the- university at the age of 
fourteen. In 1685 he graduated from the University 
of Leipsic after having studied there and at Erfurt 
and Kiel. In 1688 he spent two m.onths with Spener 
at Dresden and became deeply impressed with pietis- 
tic theories. In 1691 he was appointed professor of 
Greek and Oriental languages in the University of 
Halle, then recently founded. Here he became pas- 
tor of a church in a neighboring village, an under- 
taking which w^as to have world-wide imiportance. 

The villagers in this town of Glaucha were de- 
graded, poor, untaught. Moved by their need, Francke 
opened a school for the children in one room. He 
had little money but he trusted God. In a short w^hile 
it was necessary to add another room, then two. He 
next established a home for orphans, then he added 
homes for the destitute and fallen. As fast as his 



24 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

enterprises increased, so rapidly came the necessar)- 
support. 

The School ^^ ^^ ^^^ possible to tell here the amaz- 

at Halle. Jng history of the Halle institutions 

which sheltered even before the death of Francke more 
than a thousand souls, much less of the enormous In- 
ner Mission institutions in other parts of Germany 
which had here their inspiration. That activity of 
this remarkable man with which we are chiefly con- 
cerned is his missionary labors. In the words of Doc- 
tor Warneck: ''He knew himself to be a debtor to 
both, Christians and non-Christians. In him there '"^ 
personified that connection of rescue work at home 
with missions to the heathen — a type of the fact that 
they v/ho do the one do not leave the other undone. 
Home and foreign missions have from the beginning 
been sisters who w^ork reciprocally into each other's 
hands." 

Francke's institution became a training school for 
Christian workers. There was no specific instruction 
for such undertakings, but '*in those that came in near 
contact with him he stirred a spirit of absolute de- 
votion to divine service, such as he himself possessed 
in highest measure, and which made them ready to go 
wherever there was need of them." There came into 
the school later, as a lad, the Moravian Zinzendorf , 
afterwards a zealous missionary, who describes thus the 
eflfect of the surroundings upon him: ''The daily 
opportunity in Professor Francke's house of hearing 
edifying tidings of the kingdom of Christ, of speak- 










JOHN EVANGELIST GOSSNER. 
MENS BATHING GHAT AT PURULIA. 



THE BEGINNINGS 25 

ing with witnesses from all lands, of making acquain- 
tance with missionaries, of seeing men who had been 
banished and imprisoned, as also the institutions then 
in their bloom, and the cheerfulness of the pious man 

himself in the work of the Lord mightily 

strengthened within me zeal for the things of the 
Lord." 

From Halle there went forth during the following 
century about sixty missionaries, among them Ziegen- 
balg, Fabricius, Jaenicke, Gericke and Schwartz, whose 
careers we shall study. Here also was trained Muh- 
lenberg, the patriarch of the Lutheran Church in 
America, who intended first to go as a missionary to 
India. Here were published in 1710 the earliest mis- 
sionary reports in a little periodical which was con- 
tinued under different titles until 1880, one hundred 
and seventy years. Among those for whom the heart 
of Francke yearned were the Jews, in whose interest 
he founded the Institua Judiaca. From Halle there 
spread an influence not only through Germany but 
through the world which is difficult to estimate but 
almost impossible to exaggerate. By no means the 
least of the missionary activities which had there their 
inspiration was that of the Moravian Church, the 
most ardent in missionary work of all Churches. 

The missionary influence did not have any means 
free course. The opposition shown to the theories of 
Justinian von Welz continued. Francke was consid- 
ered no less of a fanatic. This contrary spirit may 
be show^n by the expression of a deeply pious clergy- 



26 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

man who concluded an Ascension sermon with the 
following couplet: 

" *Go into all the world/ the Lord of old did say; 
But now 'Where God has placed thee, there He 
would have thee stay.' " 

^, p. But even in poetic form missionary 

Missionary activity was soon to find an expres- 

^y""^- sion. In Halle a Lutheran Karl Hein- 

rich von Bogatsky wrote in 1750 the first Protestant 
missionary hymn. 

^'Aw^ake, Thou Spirit, who didst fire 
The watchmen of the Church's youth, 

Who faced the foe's envenomed ire, 

Who witnessed day and night Thy truth, 

Whose voices loud are ringing still. 
And bringing hosts to know Thy will. 

''And let Thy Word have speedy course. 
Through every land be glorified, 

Till all the heathen know its force, 
And fill Thy churches far and wide; 

Wake Israel from her sleep, O Lord, 

And spread the conquests of Thy Word!*' 

Before this time, how^ever, the first call for mis- 
sionary workers had come to Halle from outside Ger- 
many. 



CHAPTER II. 

Pioneers and Methods 

Pioneers. 

Bartholomew Ziegenhalg 
Henry Pliitschau 
John Ernst Griindler 
Benjamin Schultze 
John Philip Fabricius 
Christian William Gericke 
Christian Frederick Schivartz 
Karl Ewald Rhenius 
Thomas von Westen 
Per Fjellstrom 
Hans Egede 
John Jaenicke 

Methods. 

German Societies 

The Basel Society 

The Berlin Society 

The Rhenish Society 

The North German or Bremen Society 

The Leipsic Society 

The Hermannsburg Society 

The Gossner Society 

The Breklum or Schleswig-Holstein Society 

The Neukirchen Society 

The Neuendettelsau Society 

The Hanover Society 

The Bielefeld Society 

Scandinavian Societies 

The Danish Missionary Society 

The Norwegian Missionary Society 

The Norwegian Church Mission (Schreuder) 

The Norwegian Lutheran China Mission 

The Swedish National Society 

The Swedish Church Mission 

The Swedish Mission in China 

The Swedish Mongol Mission 

The Jerusalem Association 

The Home Mission to the Santals 



Finnish, Polish and other societies. 

American Societies 

Nine Norwegian Societies 
General Synod 
General Council 
United Synod South 
Synodical Conference 
Joint Ohio Synod 
Danish Society 
Iowa Synod 



Chapter II. 

PIONEERS AND METHODS 

Pioneers. 

A Danish ^^ 15^6, nine years after Luther had 

Colony. nailed his theses to the church door at 

Wittenberg, the King of Denmark accepted the Evan- 
gelical faith. Subsequently the Lutheran Church was 
made the State Church. About a hundred years later 
Denmark acquired by purchase an Indian fishing vil- 
lage, Tranquebar, on the east coast of southern India. 
There a Danish colony was established, there a Lu- 
theran church called Zion Church was built, and thither 
two preachers were sent to minister to the Danes. 
Eighty years later the heart of a pious King, Fred- 
erick IV, became concerned for the spiritual welfare 
of the heathen in this colony. His court chaplain, 
Doctor Liitken, who was also deeply interested, set 
about securing men who would be willing to under- 
take the work. Failing to meet with a response in 
Denmark, he applied to friends in Berlin. They rec- 
ommended a young German Bartholomew Ztegenbalg. 

The Son of a Young Ziegenbalg had been influenced. 
Pious Mother, as most candidates for the ministry are 
influenced, by a pious mother. Both his mother and 



30 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

father had died so early that he could remember very 
little about them. One recollection, however, was 
clear in his mind. Dying, his mother had called her 
children to her bedside and had commended to them 
her Bible, with the words: "Dear children, I am 
leaving to j^ou a treasure, a very great treasure.*' Ear- 
nest and pious, anxious for communion with God, 
the young man, who was brought up by a sister, pre- 
pared himself for the ministry. He studied at Ber- 
lin and afterwards at Halle. There his poor health 
was a cause of deep discouragement, but Francke 
reminded him that though he might not be able to 
work in Germany he might seek a field in some for- 
eign country with a more equable climate. 
CaUed to the When his health failed, Ziegenbalg left 
Mission Field. Halle and took up the work of a pri- 
vate tutor. He continued his devotional studies, how- 
ever, and held such meetings as Spener had begun. 
He formed a friendship at this time with Henry Plut- 
schau, another Halle student. Together the two cove- 
nanted "never to seek anything but the glory of God, 
the spread of His kingdom and the salvation of man- 
kind, and constantly to strive after personal holiness, 
no matter where they might be or what crosses they 
might have to bear." In 1705, Ziegenbalg accepted 
a call to a congregation near Berlin. In was here 
that he was found by the inquiry of the Danish court 
chaplain Liitken. He accepted at once, declaring 
that if his going brought about the conversion of but 
one heathen he would consider it worth while. His 



PIONEERS AND METHODS 31 

friend Pliitschau was anxious to go also, and, or- 
dained by the Danish Church, the two sailed from 
Copenhagen on the ship "Sophia Hedwig" Novem- 
ber 29, 1705, for Tranquebar. 

A Long The journej^ round the Cape of Good 

Journey. Hope consumed seven months, during 

which time each of the young missionaries wrote a 
book. On July 9, 1706, they arrived at their desti- 
nation. There, owing to a difficulty with the captain 
who had resented their admonitions, they could not 
land for two days. It w^as well that they did not 
know that he had been instructed by the trading com- 
pany under which he sailed to hinder their work in 
all possible ways. Unwillingly received by the Dan- 
ish governor, they settled in a little house near the 
city wall. 

Beside the Danish of the traders, two languages 
were spoken in Tranquebar: the Portugese of the 
first foreign settlers and the native Tamil language. 
Leaving the easier task to his companion who was the 
older, Ziegenbalg set to work to learn the native 
tongue. His progress was rapid; in a year he had 
completed a translation of the Catechism and in a 
few months over a year had preached his first ser- 
mon. By this time he had baptized fourteen souls. 
The record of his busy days seems al- 
most incredible when w^e remember 
that he was a man of delicate health. 

*'After morning prayers I begin my w^ork. From 
six to seven I explain Luther's Catechism to the peo- 



32 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

pie in Tamil. From seven to eight I review the 
Tamil w^ords and phrases Vv^hich I have learned. From 
eight to twelve I read nothing but Tamil books, new 
to me, under the guidance of a teacher who must 
explain things to me with a writer present, who wiites 
down all words and phrases which I have not had 
before. From twelve to one I eat, and have the Bible 
read to me w^hile doing so. From one till two 1 rest 
for the heat is very oppressive then. From two to 
three I have a catechisation in my house. From three 
to five I again read Tamil books. From five to six 
we have our prayer-meeting. From six to seven we 
have a conference together about the day's happen- 
ings. From seven to eight I have a Tamil writer 
read to me, as I dare not read much by lamplight. 
From eight to nine I eat, and while doing so have the 
Bible read to me. After that I examine the children 
and converse with them." 

When the two missionaries felt that it was neces- 
sary to build a church, each gave for that purpose 
half of the two hundred dollars which was his salary. 
The church w^as dedicated on August 4, 1707, and 
by the end of the year it had thirty-five members. 
Now Ziegenbalg began to work in the villages of the 
Danish possessions outside Tranquebar and established 
a school for the education of Christian children in 
the city. 

The v/ork was not without its hard 

trials. When the first financial help 

arrived, tw^o years after the missionaries had landed, 




STALL HIGH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS, GUNTUR, INDIA. 
FACULTY OF WATTS MEMORIAL COLLEGE FOR MEN, GUNTUR. 



PIONEERS AND METHODS S3 

the drunken captain upset in the harbor the chest of 
treasure and it was lost. The work of the mission- 
aries was opposed by the Danish chaplains and by the 
Roman Catholics. On account of his defense of a 
poor widow who had been cheated, Ziegenbalg was 
cast into prison for four months. 

That the faith of these pioneers was unfailing may 
be shown by a prayer, written by one of them on the 
fly leaf of a mission church-book in 1707. 

*'0 Thou exalted and majestic Savior, Lord Jesus 
Christ! Thou Redeemer of the whole human race! 
Thou who through Thy holy apostles hast everywhere, 
throughout the whole world, gathered a holy congre- 
gation out of all peoples for Thy possession, and hast 
defended and maintained the same even until now 
against all the might of hell, and moreover assurest 
Thy servants that Thou wilt uphold them even to 
the end of the world, and in the very last times wilt 
multiply them by calling many of the heathen to 
the faith! For such goodness may Thy name be eter- 
nally praised, especially also because Thou, through 
Thy unworthy servants in this place, dost communicate 
to Thy Holy Word among the heathen Thy blessing, 
and hast begun to deliver some souls out of destruc- 
tive blindness, and to incorporate them with the com- 
munion of Thy holy Church. Behold, it is Thy Word , 
do Thou support it with divine power, so that by 
Thy power many thousand souls may be born to Thee 
in these mission stations, which bear the names of Je- 
rusalem and Bethlehem, souls which afterwards may 



34 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

be admitted out of this earthly Jerusalem into Thy 
heavenly Jerusalem with everlasting and exultant joy. 
Do this, O Jesus, for the sake of Thy gracious prom- 
ise and Thy holy merit. Amen/' 

Literary Ziegenbalg prepared an order of ser- 

Work. vice and a hymnal and translated the 

New Testament into Tamil — the first translation of 
the New Testament into an East Indian tongue. An 
English missionary society, hearing of his labors, sent 
him a printing press. By 17 12 he had composed or 
had translated thirty-eight books or pamphlets. Among 
his original works was an account of the native re- 
ligions. The value of this treatise has become more 
appreciated as men have realized the importance of a 
thorough knowledge of those religious principles which 
unchristianized peoples already possess. To such knowl- 
edge was due much of Saint Paul's success among the 
Greeks. 

Ziegenbalg travelled as far as Madras. 

On this journey he talked with native 
rulers and British governors and preached to all who 
would hear about the only true God. 
Reinforce- ^^ 17^9 three missionaries were sent 

merits. to his aid. Of the three John Ernst 

Grilndler proved most able. When in 171 1 it seemed 
best for one of the missionaries to return to Europe 
to present the needs of the mission, Pliitschau was 
selected to go. There he accepted a pastorate. The 
testimony of Ziegenbalg to his faithful work accom- 
panied him. 



PIONEERS AND METHODS 35 

In 1 7 14 Ziegenbalg visited Denmark, leaving the 
mission in charge of Griindler. Upon his return in 
1 7 16 he brought with him a plan for the regular gov- 
ernment oi the mission, the assurance of ample finan- 
cial support and a helpmate, Maria Dorothea Saltz- 
mann, who was the first woman ever sent to a for- 
eign field. 

The New Jeru- ^^ February 171 7, Ziegenbalg had the 
salem Church, satisfaction of dedicating a large native 
church, the New Jerusalem Church, which is used to 
this day. He preached the sermon and the newly 
appointed governor laid the corner stone. He con- 
tinued to establish village schools, he opened a semi- 
nary for the training of native preachers and he pro- 
vided work by which the poorest of his converts could 
earn a living. Except for medical work his mission 
settlement included all the activities of the most com- 
plete missionary enterprises at the present time. 

For two more years Ziegenbalg labored, growing 
meanwhile aware that his life was drawing to a close. 
The record of his service leads us to expect that when 
his death took place in February 17 19 we should find 
him an old man. It is with a shock that we realize 
that he was only thirty-six. He was buried in the 
New Jerusalem Church. 

A Crowded The extraordinary accomplishment of 

Life. Ziegenbalg has been far less well 

know^n than it deserves to be. Even if we do not take 
into account his frail health, the extent of his labors 
is little short of marvelous. His literary work alone 



36 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

would seem to have been enough to fill to the full 
the thirteen years of his missionary activity. In ad- 
dition, he preached constantly; he made long journeys; 
he gave constant thought and effort to his schools; 
he looked after the poor; he established a theological 
seminary. From home came many criticisms. It w^as 
said that he made concessions to the caste system on 
the one hand; on the other he vi^as criticised for not 
gathering in converts as rapidly as did the Roman 
Catholic missionaries w^ho allowed their converts to 
keep all their old customs. He was reproached be- 
cause he paid so much attention to the schools. The 
criticisms, however, which caused him anxiety and 
grief serve to-day but to call attention to his splen- 
did common sense and excellent judgment, which 
later missionary experience has tested. The commun- 
ity of two hundred Christians which he left was not 
only converted — it was instructed and established in 
the faith. 

A Second The death of Ziegenbalg left his 

Grave. friend, John Ernst Griindler, fn 

charge of the mission. He had been a teacher at Halle 
and partook of the devotion of all connected with that 
great institution. For a short time he labored in Tran- 
quebar alone. Soon after the arrival of three new- 
missionaries he died and was buried in 1720 beside 
his beloved friend in the new church. 

Of the three new missionaries, Benjamin Schultze as- 
sumed the management of the mission. He resembled 
Ziegenbalg in the variety of his talents. Like Zie- 



PIONEERS AND METHODS 37 

genbalg he felt the necessity for a careful instruction 
of the natives. He continued the work of translation, 
completing the Tamil Old Testament and translating a 
part of the Bible into Telugu and the whole into Hin- 
dustani. After doing faithful work, Schultze, being 
unwilling to accept the rulings of the mission which 
had sent him to India, entered the service of an Eng- 
lish mission. After sixteen years in India he returned 
to Halle. 

The Mission During the service of Schultze a mis- 
Grows, sion station was established at Cudda- 
lore in Madras. In 1733 the first native preacher 
who had been baptized by Ziegenbalg was ordained 
to the ministry. Schools were enlarged and another 
church was erected. Presently work was begun in 
Madura to the southeast of Tranquebar. By 1740, 
thiry-four years after Ziegenbalg had begun his w^ork, 
the mission counted five thousand six hundred Chris- 
tians. 

In 1 741 John Philip Fabricius arrived in India. He 
came from a godly family in Hesse and like Luther 
had given up the study of the law for the study of 
theology. For theology he had gone to Halle and 
there had heard the call of missions. On Good Fri- 
day in 1742 he preached his first Tamil sermon and 
on Christmas in that year he was assigned to the sta- 
tion established by Schultze in Madras where he re- 
mained till his death in 1791. Like his predecessors 
he became a thorough student in the native tongues. 



38 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

He revised the translations of Ziegen- 
balg and Schultze in a form which 
remains unchanged to this day. To his translations 
the adjective ^'golden" has been applied. He trans- 
lated also many hymns for the use of his congregation. 

Together with a childlike simplicity and amiabil- 
ity Fabricius possessed great courage. He shared the 
hardships and dangers of his people during the "Thir- 
ty Years' War in South India'', defending his congre- 
gation upon one occasion at the risk of his life. 

Another Fabricius whose name should be recorded 
was that of Sebastian, the brother of John Philip, who 
was for many years the missionary secretary in Halle 
and the devoted friend of all missionaries. 

Christian William Gericke, "a great and gifted 
man", arrived in India in 1767, coming like his pre- 
decessors from Halle. His first field of labor was 
C uddalo re where he preached until war made neces- 
sary the abandonment of the mission. Gericke re- 
mained throughout the conflict, still preaching and 
exhorting and supporting his children in the faith. He 
saw his converts suffering cruelly and was compelled 
to watch the soldiers changing his church into a powder 
magazine. 

In Madras whither he was invited he took over the 
work of Fabricius, who was now old and infirm. 
From there he was able to visit occasionally the scat- 
tered members of his Cuddalore flock. 

The number of his converts amounted 

An Evangelist. . , • . i 1 i t^ 

m a short time to three thousand. It 

was said that whole villages followed him when he 



PIONEERS AND METHODS 39 

conducted mission tours, which were likened to tri- 
umphal processions. In some villages temples were 
stripped of their idols and converted into houses of 
worship. When he approached a village the entire 
population frequently awaited him. It is related that 
the heathen never came to their temples as they came 
to this man of God. Worn out, he died in 1803 at 
the age of sixty-one. 

Another Pious ^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ Bartholomew Zie- 
Mother. genbalg so in the case of Christian 

Frederick Schwartz, the impulse to the Christian min- 
istry came from a godly mother. She died when the 
lad was but five years old, but she had made her hus- 
band promise that her boy should be prepared for 
the ministry. 

Like Ziegenbalg and Luther and many other re- 
ligious heroes, Schwartz suffered in his youth from the 
weight of sin and the fear of God's judgment. Like 
them also he came, after study of God's Word and 
earnest prayer, to rest his soul upon the almighty 
promises. At Halle he met Bejamin Schultze who 
called upon him to aid in his revision of the Tamil 
Bible. Urged by his teachers to consider a call to 
the mission field, he -felt himself at first to be un- 
worthy. Finally, however, he agreed to go. When 
he informed his father of his intention he met with 
dismay and refusal. The elder Schwartz had three 
children, of these one son had just died, a daughter 
was about to be married and now the third proposed 
to go to distant India! Finally the father was won 



40 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

over and, giving his son his blessing, charged him to 
win man}^ souls for Christ. How many times in mis- 
sionary history has this drama of unwillingness, per- 
suasion and final yielding been enacted ! 
A Father's May all fathers and mothers who give 

Sacrifice. their children to the great cause have 

reason for gratitude as did the elder Schwartz! 

In January, 1750, Schwartz and two companions 
sailed, only to return on account of fearful storms. 
In March they set out once more and reached Tran- 
quebar at the end of July. 

A DQigent The first work assigned to the young 

Student. j^ian was the teaching of the children 

in the schools. He longed to go into the wilderness 
of heathendom outside the city and there do pioneer 
w^ork, and in preparation for the day when he should 
be allowed to go, he applied himself to a study of the 
people, their language and their religion. As a result 
of his thorough comprehension of their nature and 
their needs he was to have a deep and lasting in- 
fluence upon them. For twelve years he worked in 
Tranquebar and the outlying villages . 

In 1755, by the persuasion of the w^ife of a Ger- 
man officer, Schwartz and his companions were al- 
lowed to pay a short visit to Tanjore, the city which 
was the seat of the native government and which had 
hitherto been closed to missionaries. 
"Opening I^ 1^62 they went on a similar visit 

I^oors. to a little company of native Chris- 

tians who had settled in Trichinopoli, for which Eng- 



PIONEERS AND METHODS 41 

land and France had contended for many years. The 
city was a center for idolatrous worship and contained 
great temples to the elephant god Genesa, to Siva and 
to Vishnu. Here also there was a popular Mohamme- 
dan shrine. Well might the visitors feel that all 
the evil of heathendom was gathered to greet them. 

At that time the English had control of the city 
and to the joy of the visitors they besought them to 
stay, promising that they would build them a church. 
It was decided that Schwartz should remain. 
A True ^^ making this change an important 

Lutheran. question had to be solved by Schwartz. 

In order to take up the work which seemed offered 
by Providence, he w^ould have to sever connection with 
the Danish Lutheran society whose missionary he had 
hitherto been and become a missionary of the Church 
of England. In the end he decided that he would 
accept English support but he stipulated that he would 
remain a true Lutheran, preaching the doctrines of 
his own faith. He was the first of many eflScient 
German Lutherans who laid the foundations for the 
work of other churches, and who thus furnished 
an example of true brotherliness which has often been 
forgotten or overlooked. * 

/^t Schwartz had always been diligent, 

Trichinopoli. but now it seemed that his labors be- 
came superhuman. He had prayed for opportunity — 
here was unlimited opportunity! He had studied dil- 
igently — here were men of many tongues to whom he 
might preach. With true wisdom he began his work. 



42 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

With the methods of the Apostles as his model he 
trained the best of his converts to become missionaries 
to their own people. Each morning he sent them out. 
two by two, and each evening he listened to an account 
of their work. He added Hindustani and Persian to 
the languages which he already knew so that he might 
reach the Mohammedans and the court, and studied to 
improve his broken English so that he might preach 
to the English soldiers at the garrison. His ministra- 
tions to them after a serious explosion and a battle 
brought him gifts from the government and the sol- 
diers. Presently he built at the foot of the mighty rock 
upon which stood a heathen temple a Christian church. 

Schwartz w^as now fifty-two years old. 

He had accomplished large tasks, yet 
the chief labors of his life were still before him. He 
learned to his amazement that the spirit at Tanjore 
had changed and he was urged to return, not for a 
short visit as before but to remain. The new Rajah 
of Tanjore sought his advice about the settlement of 
certain political differences, and finding a divine call 
in this summons, Schwartz left his work at Trichinopoli 
in the hands of others and took up his abode in Tan- 
jore in a house presented by the rajah. Here, sup- 
ported by the rajah, who, however, could not bring 
himself quite to the point of becoming a Christian, 
Schwartz lived for twelve years. 

Here the English garrison was transformed as the 
garrison at Trichinopoli had been. Two churches 
were founded, one for the European residents, the other 



PIONEERS AND METHODS 43 

for native Christians. School houses were built 
in which English and Tamil were taught and where 
the Christian religion was openly proclaimed. These 
schools became the models for the great school system 
of the English government. A tribe of professional rob- 
bers forsook their evil lives as the result of Schwartz's 
preaching, sent their children to the schools and set- 
tled down to the cultivation of the soil and to silk cul- 
ture. With the city as a center Schwartz travelled in 
all directions encouraging, advising, aiding. He es- 
tablished a congregation at Tinnevelli, to the south, of 
which we shall hear later. 

The Missionary ^^ ^^^ history of India Schwartz is 
Statesman. described as the missionary statesman. 

Such w^ithout any will of his own, but on account of 
circumstances and his remarkable character, he became. 
Foreseeing war with a neighboring ruler in which Tan- 
jore was likely to be beseiged, he stored away quan- 
tities of rice upon which the people fed and which saved 
multitudes from death. When the rajah grew old 
the governor of the Madras presidency made Schw^artz 
the head of a commission which was to rule in his stead, 
and when the rajah died he himself made Schwartz 
regent during the minority of his son. Schwartz tried 
to avoid this heavy responsibility, until the rajah's 
brother proved cruel and incapable of governing. Then 
the mission house became the capitol of the province 
and for two years the "king-priest'* reigned. After 
the heir had come to the throne, he consulted Schwartz 
on all important questions. 



44 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

The character of this missionary hero is beautifully 
described by his biographer, Dr. Charles E. Hay.* 

*'In undertaking all the secular duties thus imposed 
upon him, the missionary was never lost in the states- 
man. He still gathered his children and catechumens 
about him daily, preached whenever a little company of 
people could be assembled and superintended the la- 
bors of the increasing number of missionaries sent by 
various European societies to India. These all rec- 
ognized him as their real leader, and it was universally 
felt that the first preparatory step for successful mis- 
sionary labor in southern India was to catch the in- 
spiration and receive the counsel of the untitled mis- 
sionary bishop at Tan j ore. Around his residence 
building after building was erected — chapels, school- 
houses, seminaries, missionary homes, etc — all set in a 
beautiful garden, filled with rare tropical plants. What 
a refuge for the wearied and perhaps discouraged cat- 
echist ! What a scene of beauty and peace to allure the 
steps of the hopeless devotee of a heartless idolatry! 
But the center of attraction for all alike was the 
radiant countenance of the grand old man upon whom 
his seventy years rested never so lightly — never too 
tired to entertain the humblest visitor, always ready 
to help by word or deed in any perplexity." 
Illness and ^^ October, 1 797, the old man fell ill. 

Death. Thinking that his end was at hand he 

sent for the young rajah whose guardian he had been 



*In Missionary Heroes of the Lutheran Church, Phila- 
delphia: Lutheran Publication Society. 



PIONEERS AND METHODS 45 

and urged him once more to hear the heavenly in- 
vitation. Would that we could record that this young 
man answered, like so many of his humble subjects, 
"I believe'M Improving somewhat, Schwartz sum- 
moned his pupils once more and went on with 
his work. The end came at last in February, 1798. 
With his grieving mission family gathered about him, 
he fell asleep, his last words being, *'Into Thy hands 
I commend my spirit. Thou has redeemed me, Thou 
faithful God." 

A Noble Claiming him for their own, those for 

Tribute. whom he had labored provided for his 

burial. The rajah who followed the bier as chief 
mourner built a handsome monument on which he is 
represented as kissing the hand of his dying friend. 
The East India Company placed a memorial in the 
church at Madras with the inscription, ^'Sacred to 
the Memory of Christian Frederick Schwartz whose 
life was one continued effort to imitate the example 
of his blessed Master. He, during a period of fifty 
years, Vent about doing good.' In him religion ap- 
peared not with a gloomy aspect or forbidding mien, 
but with a graceful form and placid dignity. Beloved 
and honored by Europeans, he was, if possible, held 
in still deeper reverence by the natives of this coun- 
try of every degree and sect. The poor and injured 
looked up to him as an unfailing friend and advo- 
cate. The great and powerful concurred in yielding 
him the highest homage ever paid in this quarter of 
the globe to European virtue." 



46 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

Thus died this godly man. To those whose aim 
is heavenly peace we commend such a life as his. I'o 
those whose ambition includes a desire for earthly 
honor we commend him also. The young rajah added 
to his handsome memorial another tribute composed 
by him and engraved on the stone which covers his 
body. 

"Firm wast thou, humble and wise, 
Honest, pure, free from disguise; 
Father of orphans, the widow's support, 
Comfort in sorrows of every sort: 
To the benighted, dispenser of light. 
Doing and pointing to that which is right. 
Blessing to princes, to people, to me. 
May I, my father, be worthy of thee." 

Work for Aiding and succeeding Christian Fred- 

Another Church, erick Schwartz in the English mission 
was his adopted son, the Rev. J. B, Kohlhojf, who 
arrived at Tranquebar in 1737 and worked among the 
Tamils for fifty-three years. His son, John Caspar, 
was ordained by Schwartz. Together Schwartz and 
the two Kohlhoffs worked in India for an aggregate 
period of one hundred and fifty-six years. Still an- 
other Lutheran in the English service was W, T. 
Ringeltaubey who was trained at Halle. Upon the 
foundation which he laid the London Missionary So- 
ciety has built nobly and has now after a hundred 
years a Christian community of seventy thousand. 



PIONEERS AND METHODS 47 

A Period ^^ ^'^ estimated that at the end of the 

of Neglect. Eighteenth Century the Danish-Halle 

mission in India numbered fifteen thousand Christians. 
Then a period of rationalism in Europe brought about 
indifference and neglect of the mission fields. From 
England came the first wave of mounting missionary- 
zeal and into English hands passed a large part of 
the work of the Danish-Halle missionaries. While 
we acknowledge that the}^ have continued the work 
with zeal and with marked success, yet we cannot 
but regret that so much that was ours, so much that 
was w^on by the devotion of Ziegenbalg and Schwartz, 
no longer bears the Lutheran name. 

- . In the service of the English mission 

Another ^ 

Steadfast was Karl Ewald RheniuSj a German 

Lutheran. Lutheran who was sent soon after the 

opening of the new century to that field which had 
passed partly from Danish Halle to English hands. 
He went first to Tranquebar and thence to Madras, 
where for five years he preached and studied. At the 
end of this time he was transferred to Palmacotta, 
the chief city of the Tinneve lli ^^ istrict. Here he 
began an original work, the founding of Christian 
villages. i\s soon as sufficient natives were converted, 
land was bought and they were settled upon it so 
that they might be removed from former associations 
and temptations. Presently a native organization was 
formed the object of which was the aid of new 
Christian settlements. 



48 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

In 1832 Mr. Rhenfus withdrew from service as a 
missionary of the English society, the chief ground of 
difficulty being the demand of the society that he be 
ordained by the English Church, and for four years 
he conducted an independent mission. In character and 
capacity for work Rhenius was not unlike Christian 
Frederick Schwartz. Beside a great amount of trans- 
lating he had time to prepare a valuable essay on the 
"Principles of Translating the Holy Scriptures", He 
is notable also as one of the earliest missionaries to 
take a decided stand against the observance of caste. 

The appeal of Rhenius for his independent Lu- 
theran mission in India was one of the influences in 
the first missionary activity of the American Lutheran 
Church. Upon his death his followers returned to 
the English Mission. In Tinnevelli where Christian 
Frederick Schwartz laid the foundation and Rhenius 
helped to build upon it, there are now over one hun- 
dred thousand Christians belonging to the Church 
of England. 

In the I^ ^^s ^'^ ^7^4 ^hat the Danish King 

Far North. Frederick IV. turned his thoughts to 

the Christianizing of his East India possessions. Soon 
after this time his attention was drawn to a need 
nearer at hand. Among the Lapps who lived in the 
arctic lands to the north there was great destitution, 
both spiritual and material. Here idolatry and sac- 
rifices to the evil spirits were common and the official 
transferral of the country from the Roman to the 
Evangelical Church had had no effect, since both 



PIONEERS AND METHODS 49 

before and after the natives were at heart heathen. 
Those who were most devout in spirit had worshipped 
both the heathen and the Christian gods, feeling that 
thus were they safe. 

A commission was appointed by the King of Den- 
mark-Norway in 1 714 to inquire into the state of 
these northern people. To Finland was sent in 1716 
Thomas von West en, who had himself presented viv- 
idly the misery of these poor Esquimaux. Among them 
he found Isak Olsen, a devoted school master who 
had been engaged for fourteen years in missionary 
work, and who now offered his services for von Wes- 
ten's undertaking. 

Concerning this Isak Olsen, it is related in Stock- 
fleth's Diary {Dagbog) that he had labored *Vith 
apostolic fervor and faithfulness; in poverty and self- 
denial; in perils at sea, and in perils on land. The 
Finns hated him because he discovered their idolatry 
and their places of sacrifice; almost as a pauper, and 
frequently half clothed, he travelled about among them. 
When, as it frequently happened, he was compelled 
to journey across the mountains, they gave him the 
most refractory reindeer, in order that he might per- 
ish on the journey. By all kinds of maltreatment, they 
sought to shorten his life, and to weary him out. In 
this purpose, however, they were not successful; for 
God was with Isak, and labored with him, so that 
his toil prospered." He not only instructed the Finns 
in Christianity, but he taught a number of Finnish 
youths to write, an art which very few Norsemen 



50 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

had acquired at that time. In 1716, von Westen took 
him to Throndhjem, Norway, where he translated the 
Catechism and the Athanasian Creed into the language 
of the Lapps. 

Travelling from place to place, von Westen won 
the affection of the benighted people whom he loved. 
He exposed before them the foolishness of the sor- 
cerers, built churches, educated the children and sent 
young men to Throndhjem to prepare them- 
selves to be ministers to their people. The hardships 
of three missionary journeys undertaken and carried 
out in a few years so w^ore upon him that he was 
added at the age of forty-five to those who have gone 
to their reward. 

To Swedish Lapland went Per Fjellstrbm (died 
1764) who did not only valuable missionary v/ork him- 
self, but who laid the foundation for all future w^ork 
by his translations of the New Testament, the Cate- 
chism and many of the Psalms. Through him and 
his associates the whole of Swedish Lapland heard the 
pure Gospel. 

In 1739, a royal directorate Vv^as appointed to guide 
and supervise the Church and school system of Swedish 
Lapland. It designated Per Holmbom and Per Hog- 
strom as missionaries to that district. Hogstrom, 
who died in 1784, is the best known of Per Fjell- 
strom's associates. He gained great renown among 
the Lapps. He has described his mission labors among 
them, and his Question Book in the Lapp language, is 
a catechetical work of merit. 



PIONEERS AND METHODS 51 

To the west of the Scandinavian countries lies 
Iceland, which needed no missionaries. Visiting Eu- 
rope in the Sixteenth Century, Icelanders carried back 
to their country the story of the Reformation. They 
introduced at once the Danish Lutheran liturgy and 
translated and printed the Bible. After some oppo- 
sition, the work of the Reformation became complete. 
A Zealous Beyond Iceland lies Greenland with 

Soul. its snowy fields, its great glaciers, its 

long dark night and its bitter cold. In the Ninth 
Century a colony of Norwegians settled there, but 
in the course of time perished from cold or star- 
vation or by the hand of enemies. Their fate was un- 
known and they were forgotten when Hans Egede, a 
Lutheran pastor at Vaagen in Norway, read of their 
settlement and became possessed of a desire to preach 
to them that Gospel which had proved so great a 
blessing to his own land. In 1710 he wrote to the 
King and to several bishops urging that he be allowed 
to go as a missionary to these distant folk. 

The King was in sympathy w^ith his desire, but not 
so his people. The plan w^as thought to be impracti- 
cal, if not insane. Egede^s own family bitterly opposed 
him. 

But Egede was at once gentle and persistent. Sup- 
ported by the devotion of his wife he continued to urge 
his cause. He visited the King, but the interview had 
a contrary result from that which he hoped. The King 
asked those who opposed the project to send in the 
reasons for their objection to the court, and so prompt- 



52 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

ly and fully did they respond that Egede became an 
object of even greater derision. 

The Ship Finally Egede persuaded a few men to 

**Hope". subscribe two hundred dollars apiece; 

he gave from his scanty store six hundred, and all to- 
gether ten thousand dollars was gathered. In a ves- 
sel which he called ''The Hope" he set out May, 1721, 
accompanied by his wife and little children and some 
colonists, in all about forty souls. After a perilous 
voyage partly among masses of ice floating in 
a stormy sea they landed in Greenland in July. The 
situation which they met was uncomfortable and de- 
pressing. ''As many as twenty natives occupied one 
tent, their bodies unwashed, their hair uncombed and 
both their persons and their clothing dripping with 
rancid oil. The tents were filled and surrounded with 
seal flesh in all stages of decomposition and the only 
scavengers were the dogs. Few had any thought be- 
yond the routine of their daily life. No article that 
could be carried off was safe within their reach, and 
lying was open and shameless. Skillful in derision and 
mimicry, and despising men, who, so they said, spent 
their time in looking at a paper or scratching it with 
a feather, they did not study gentle modes of giving 
expression to their feelings. They wanted nothing 
but plently of seals, and as for the fire of hell, that 
would be a pleasant contrast to their terrible cold. 
When the missionary asked them to deal truly with 
God, they asked when he had seen Him last. 



PIONEERS AND METHODS 53 

"The cold as winter drew near was terrific. The 
eiderdown pillows stiffened with frost, the hoarfrost 
extended to the mouth of the stove and alcohol froze 
upon the table. The sun was invisible for two months. 
There was no change in the dreary night.'** 
The Reward The devotion of Egede to these de- 
of Faith. graded people was not shared by the 

colonists and traders who had come with him. When 
the expected ship failed to appear in the spring they 
announced that they would return. They had al- 
ready begun to tear down the buildings preparatory 
to their departure when the faith of Egede was re- 
warded. A ship arrived and with it the welcome news 
that the mission would be supported. 

During the summer, Egede, in his exploration of 
the various bays which indent the coast, discovered 
the ruins of one of the settlements which he had 
read about and which had seemed to beckon him to 
Greenland. There were only ruins remaining, but 
it seemed to this devoted soul that he could hear the 
echoes of Norwegian hymns and Norwegian prayers. 
The next year in a journey along the coast he found 
many other ruins, among them those of a church fifty 
by twenty feet with walls six feet thick. Nearby in 
the churchyard rested the bones of pastor and peo- 
ple. 

A Devoted Preaching, translating, trying to es- 

"Wi^e* tablish better methods of agriculture, 

now receiving aid from home, now apparently for- 

*Hans Egede: the Rev. Thomas Laurie, Missionary Re- 
mewo of the Worlds December, 1889. 



54 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

gotten, Egede labored for fifteen years. Beside the 
heavenly assurance of ultimate victory his chief so- 
lace was the devotion of his wife. *'She was con- 
fined to the monotony of their humble home, while 
he was called here and there by the duties of his 
office; but though its comforts were very scanty, she 
saw the ships from Norway come and go, and heard 
tidings from her native land without any desire to 
desert her work. Amid all his troubles her husband 
ever found her face serene and her spirit rejoicing 
in God. His greatest trial was the want of success 
in his work. Though many pretended to believe, he 
could find little change in heart or life, for those who 
affected to hear the Word with joy, among their own 
people still spoke of his instructions and prayers with 
derision."* 

Presently a fort was established to protect the col- 
ony and the island from other nations, but the pres- 
ence of armed men drove the islanders farther away. 
After the death of Frederick IV, the colonists were 
commanded to return to Denmark. Egede declined 
to go. In 1733 hope was once more kindled by the 
announcement that trade would be renewed and the 
mission be supported. 

But greater misfortunes were at hand. 
A Sad Heart. \ c c ^ • 1 • c n 

A tearful epidemic or smallpox rav- 
aged the country. '*In their despair some stabbed 
themselves, others plunged into the sea. In one hut 
an only son died and the father enticed his wife's 

""Ibid. 



PIONEERS AND METHODS 55 

sister in and murdered her, as having bewitched his 
son and so caused his death. In this great trial Egede 
and his son went everywhere, nursing the sick, com- 
forting the bereaved and burying the dead. Often 
they found only empty houses and unburied corpses. 
On one island they found only one girl with her 
three little brothers. After burying the rest of the 
people, the father lay down in the grave he had pre- 
pared for himself and his infant child, both sick with 
the plague and bade the girl cover them with skins 
and stones to protect their bodies from wild beasts. 
Egede sent the survivors to the colony, lodged as 
many as his house would hold and nursed them with 
care. Many w^ere touched by such kindness, and 
one who had often mocked the good man, said to him 
now, 'You have done for us more than we do for 
our own people ; you have buried our dead and have 
told us of a better life.' " Finally the missionary's wife 
fell also a victim to the plague. Dying she blessed 
him and his work. 

In 1736, broken in health, Egede returned to Den- 
mark, invited by the King. There by pen and tongue 
he continued to w^ork for Greenland until his death. 
The Church Upon the foundation laid by Egede 
of Greenland. missionaries of a closely-related Church 
built a noble superstructure. Appealing to the heart 
rather than to the intellect, the heroic Moravians won 
the country for Christ. Soon spring daw^ned in that 
wintry land. When a Moravian missionary dwelt 
upon the love of God and the agony of Christ, an 



56 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

Esquimaux stepped forward asking eagerly, ^'How 
was that? Tell me that again, for I also would be 
saved." 

The mission to Greenland offers not only records 
of noble devotion and sacrifice but a touching and re- 
markable conclusion. In 1899 the Moravians handed 
back to the Danish Lutheran Church the work which 
the Lutherans had begun. The missionary task was 
complete; with no selfish desire to hold for themselves 
in ease what they had won in great difficulty, the Mo- 
ravians turned their labors into other fields among 
the many which they have so diligently harvested. 
The Lutheran Church which has sent so many la- 
borers into other mission fields has here had a brother- 
ly return. 

The latter part of the Eighteenth Cen- 
A. lVI3.l3.dv 

tury offers a less happy missionary 

spectacle than the earlier part. Upon religious life, 
not only in Lutheran countries but in other Protest- 
ant countries fell the blight of indiiterence and of 
rationalism. When men do not believe the doctrines 
of the Scriptures, when a future life becom.es a mat- 
ter of doubt and personal salvation the subject of 
amusement, they cease to feel an obligation to those 
who are less favorably situated, and the carrying of 
the Gospel message becomes a useless or worse than 
useless undertaking. 

This malady of unbelief affected the Church, how- 
ever, for only a short time. By the beginning of the 
Nineteenth Century men were already returning to 




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PIONEERS AND METHODS 57 

the hope which they had rejected. With the return 
came once more that sense of obligation to the heathen 
world which had been so clearly seen by von Welz, 
Francke, Ziegenbalg and Schwartz. 
A Missionary The new light shone out in the open- 
School, ing year of the new century. Then 
John Jaenicke, who was called *Tather" Jaenicke, 
established in Berlin a missionary school, the first 
Protestant institution whose object was primarily the 
direct training of missionaries. For many years Jae- 
nicke had been the only believing preacher of the 
Gospel in Berlin. In spite of a disease which threat- 
ened constantly a fatal hemorrhage, he labored with 
a humorous disregard of his physical disability — and 
lived to be eighty years old! His church in Berlin 
was composed partly of Bohemians, and to these he 
preached in the morning in Bohemian, his native tongue. 
In the afternoon he preached in German and on Mon- 
day evening he gave a powerful review of his Sunday 
sermons, dwelling constantly on two cardinal points, 
human sin and divine grace, and crying earnestly to 
his people. "You are sinners, you need a Savior, here in 
the Scriptures Christ offers Himself to you!'' 

Visiting the sick, giving alms to the needy, comfort- 
ing the desolate, and alas! constantly laughed at and 
mocked, this godly man pursued the course which 
he had set for himself. As in the case of Francke, 
so in the case of Jaenicke an abounding charity con- 
cerned itself not only with those at hand but with 
those afar off. From his missionary school, he sent 



58 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

out in twenty-seven years about eighty missionaries. 
Before his death the beauty of his character and the 
softening heart of his country enabled men to see him 
as he was. 

The Jaenicke school exists no more as such, but in 
the impulse given to missions and in a successor, the 
Berlin Missionary Society, it still lives. 

Methods. 

A Method -^^^ those who are acquainted only 

of Work. with the missionary methods of the 

American Lutheran Church, in which missionary work 
is done officially by the various branches of the Church, 
it is necessary to explain briefly the different procedure 
of Germany and other foreign countries. Where 
the Lutheran Church is the State Church, it cares 
officially only for those within the State. All other 
varieties of Christian work are carried on by socie- 
ties which have been organized either by groups of 
zealous men and women or else by a single person. 
The circumstances connected with the foundation and 
the history of these organizations are often intensely 
interesting. It is to be regretted that we can give 
only a short space to each one. 

German Societies. 

A Century -'^^ missionary society has had a more 

of Service. interesting beginning than the Basel 

Society. There was encamped on one side of the Swiss 
city of Basel in 1815 a Hungarian army, on the other 



PIONEERS AND METHODS 59 

side a Russian army. Destruction seemed certain, 
and when it was averted the pious folk determined in 
gratitude to establish a mission seminary to train 
preachers for the heathen. While this undertaking 
is partly Reformed, its intimate connection with the 
Lutheran Church makes it proper for us to include 
its work in a history of Lutheran missions. Many 
of its directors and a large proportion of its workers 
have been Lutherans and a great deal of its support 
has come from Lutheran sources. 

At first the men trained in the Basel school went 
into the employ of English missionary societies, but 
in 1822, after eighty-eight missionaries had served 
the English Church Missionary Society alone, the 
society sent its men to its own fields. Between 1815 
and 1882 the society trained eleven hundred and twelve 
candidates. 

The Basel society has certain distinct and peculiar 
characteristics. It combines with its evangelical w^ork 
industrial work which is managed by a missionary 
trading society. It was the first of the German socie- 
ties to combine medical with evangelical work. It 
trains surgeons, farmers, weavers, shoemakers, bakers, 
w^orkers in w^ood and iron, tailors, printers and me- 
chanics as well as teachers and ministers. 

In 19 1 5, surrounded once more by cannon, but 
still in peace, the Basel society celebrated its centen 
nial, in rejoicing yet in sadness. It has now stations 
in India, China and Africa. Its last accessible re- 
port gave its income in 191 3 as $586,000. 



60 THE STORY OP LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

Royal By 1823 the attitude of the Church 

Approval. toward missions had so changed and 

improved that ten distinguished men, theologians, 
jurists and officials of the government issued **An 
Appeal for Charitable Contributions in aid of Evan- 
gelical Missions". The organization v^hich they 
formed received the royal sanction and was called 
the Berlin Society, In 1834 the first missionaries 
were sent to South Africa. At present the society 
works in Africa and China. Its last income was 
$291,000. 

Another Large ^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^e Basel Society, so 
Society. {n the case of the Rhenish Society there 

are two elements, Lutheran and Reformed, who work 
together in all its enterprises. Its school and head- 
quarters are in Barmen, Westphalia; its first mission- 
aries w^ere sent to South Africa in 1829. Its fields lie 
in Africa, the Dutch East Indies and China. Its in- 
come was in 1913 $328,000. 

In the north of Germany is located the North Ger- 
man or Bremen Society whose workers are trained at 
Basel and whose field is West Africa where it has 
offered an amazing sacrifice. Its income was in 191 3, 
$71,000. 

An "Aristocrat ^^^ Leipsic Society, which was organ- 
Among ized in 1 836, received its strongest im- 

Missions. p^ggg f^Q^ j^g director Doctor Karl 

Graulj a thoroughly trained theologian and a devoted 
supporter of missions. He endeavored to make this 
society the center of the missionary work of the whole 



PIONEERS AND METHODS 61 

Lutheran Church. He not only organized, advised 
and managed from the home base but spent four years 
in India. The society works in India and Africa. 
On account of the thoroughness and solidity of its 
work it has been called ''the aristocrat among mis- 
sions". Its income was in 191 3, $179,000. 
The First Mis- The Hermannsburg Mission was be- 
sionary Ship. gun in 1 849. Its genius was Louis 
Harms, the pastor of the Lutheran church in the 
village of Hermannsburg. Though he was brought 
up under rationalistic influences he remained true to 
the principles of the Gospel. He believed that mis- 
sionary work could be best accomplished by the send- 
ing out of colonies of missionaries who should be a 
source of support and encouragement to one another and 
who should furnish to the natives an example of Chris- 
tian behavior in all the walks oi life. His enthusi- 
asm imparted itself to his congregation which was will- 
ing to make any sacrifice in order that his plans might 
be carried out. His first missionary party numbered 
twenty, twelve missionaries and eight colonists who 
sailed on the ship "Candace" for East Africa. Be- 
side its African field the Hermannsburg Society has 
stations in India and Persia. Its income in 191 3 was 
$139,000. 

The Work of ^^^e the Hermannsburg Mission, the 
One Man. Gossner Mission owes its existence to 

the faith and piety of a single man. This remarkable 
person, John Evangelist Gossner, was originally a 
Roman Catholic priest who was banished from Ba- 



62 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

varia because his preaching and his writing tended 
constantly away from orthodox Romanism. Perse- 
cuted, he declared his intention of entering the Lu- 
theran Church, and was put through a severe ex- 
amination. Proving that he held the pure faith, he 
was ordained about 1827. He was subsequently pas- 
tor of large congregations, among them that of which 
^Tather" Jaenicke had been pastor. His labors knew al- 
most no limit and included home missions, foreign mis- 
sions, religious correspondence, writing and works >f 
mercy of all kinds. That activity with which we are 
most concerned is the mission in India which he estab- 
lished on certain independent principles. He believed, 
for instance, that missionaries should work with their 
hands and thus provide for their maintenance as did 
the Apostle Paul. In ten years he sent out to vari- 
ous missionary societies eighty missionaries. In 1844 
he established a mission of his own among the Kols 
in India. To-day the Gossner mission concentrates 
its efforts chiefly upon its India station. Its income 
was in 191 3 $184,000. 

^- Forty years had now passed since 

Promising Father Jaenicke founded his mission- 

Societies. ^j.y school and the new life of mis- 

sions began. For about twenty years no societies were 
formed. Since that time there have been many new 
undertakings. Among them is the Breklum or Schles- 
wig-Holstein Society which was founded in 1877 by 
a devoted Pastor Jensen. Its fields are India and 
Africa and its income was in 191 3 $67,000. The 



PIONEERS AND METHODS 63 

Neukirchen Society was founded in 1882 in the Rhine 
province, by Ludwig Doll, who vowed during a severe 
illness that if he were restored he w^ould give his life 
to missions. This society labors in Africa and Java 
and had in 191 3 an income of $30,000. Most im- 
portant among the remaining Lutheran societies are 
that of Neuendettelsau w^hich works in Kaiser Wil- 
helmsland in New Guinea, and also in Australia, the 
Hanover Society with stations in South Africa, and the 
Bielefeld Society in East Africa. 

^ Before leaving; this brief introduction 

German ^ ^ ^ 

Missionary to the missionary labors of Germany, 

Scholarship. ^^.^ ^^^^ allude to the fine service paid 

by various Germans in the field of missionary literature. 
The Germans were the originators of the scientific 
study of missions. They have given to missions its 
greatest historian, Doctor Gustav Warneck, who for 
many years occupied at the University of Halle the 
only academic chair in Christendom then devoted to the 
teaching and study of missions, and who prepared 
monumental volumes discussing his beloved theme. 
To his study and to that of other German scholars the 
Lutheran Church owes much of that sobriety and 
thoroughness with which its mission work has been 
done. 

Scandinavian Societies. 

Though the pioneer Lutheran mission- 
In Denmark. . ^ . , , i -r»i .. 1 

aries, Zeigenbalg and rlutschau, were 

sent to India by Denmark, missionary activity Ian- 



64 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

guished in Scandinavia for many years. The Danish 
Missionary Society j organized in 1821, sent mission- 
aries to the Greenland mission and a few to the work 
of the Basel society in Africa. In 1862 it established 
missions of its own in India and Northern China. In 
1913 its income was $125,000.. 

The Norwegian Missionary Society 
was founded in 1842 in Stavanger and 
consists at the present time of about nine hundred 
societies. It works among the Zulus in South Africa, 
in Madagascar, and also in China. In 191 3 its in- 
come was $234,000. The Norwegian Church Mis- 
sion was organized by Bishop Schreuder in 1873. 
Its field is in South Africa. The Norwegian Lutheran 
China Mission^ organized in 1890, has an income of 
$62,000. 

In Sweden there are various Lutheran 
In Sweden. . . ... rj^. 

missionary organizations. Ihe most 

important are the Swedish National Society, which 
works in East Africa and Central India, and has an 
income of $120,000, and the Swedish Church Mission 
whose fields are in South Africa and East India and 
which has an income of $88,000. Among the smaller 
societies are the Swedish Mission in China, the 
Swedish Mongol Mission, and the Jerusalem Asso- 
ciation, 

One of the interesting characters fn 
A Brave Girl. 11. en t • • • 

the history ot Scandinavian missions 

was a young Finnish girl, Maria Mathsdotter, by name, 

who, through the preaching of the missionaries had 



PIONEERS AND METHODS 65 

come to understand the need of her people for 
the Gospel. She learned Swedish so that she might 
speak to the King and thereupon in 1864 set out to 
walk two hundred miles to Stockholm. When a few 
dais later she started back, she carried with her enough 
money to build a children's home to which Finnish 
children could go for Christian and some industrial 
instruction. As a result there are to-day a number 
of such ^^omes in Finland. 

Among the most popular missionary 
societies in Denmark and Norway is the 
Home MissiG7i to the Santalsj established in 1867 by a 
Dane, Hans Peter Borresen and a Norwegian Lars 
Olsen Skrefsrud. Lars Skrefsrud was the son of pious 
Christian parents, but led a life of such waywardness 
that he was finally confined in prison. During his 
term of two years li^. was thoroughly converted 
and determined to devote his life when he should be 
free to mission work. As soon as he was released he 
offered himself to the Norwegian mission in Africa, 
but the committee concluded that a man just out of 
prison was not a safe agent. He then applied to 
Father Gossner, who accepted him for work in In- 
dia. In the training school he became acquainted with 
Borresen, and so close was their friendship that when 
they were placed in different stations they separated 
from the Gossner mission to found the Home Mission 
to the SantalSj which is supported by Danish and Nor- 
wegian Lutheranr in all parts of the world. 



66 the story of lutheran missions 

Finnish^ Polish^ and Other Societies. 

Not the least valuable of Lutheran missionary en- 
terprises is that of little Finland, which after contrib- 
uting to the missionary work of other nations, es- 
tablished in 1859 on the occasion of the seven hun- 
dredth anniversary of the conversion of Finland to 
Christianity the Finnish Lutheran Missionary Society 
with headquarters at Helsingfors. In 1867 the so- 
ciety began its own mission in South Africa, and later 
in Japan. Its income was in 191 3 $72,000. The 
Finnish Lutheran Gospel Society works in China. 

The Lutherans of Poland divide their contributions 
among various German Lutheran societies, among 
them the Leipsic and Gossner societies. 

The Lutherans of Friesland, a province of Holland, 
contribute to the work of the Bremen or North Ger- 
man Society. 

In the Netherlands there are small Lutheran or- 
ganizations which aid in the work of the German mis- 
sionaries in the Dutch East Indies. 

American Societies. 

The missionary work of the American Lutheran 
Church is accomplished both by the various large bod- 
ies and by organizations w^ithin the synods whose sole 
purpose is missionary work. From the Norwegians 
and Danes in America, contributions are sent to the 
missionary societies of the fatherland, such as the Home 
Mission to the Santals. There are nine American-Nor- 



PIONEERS AND METHODS 67 

wegian organizations — the United Church, the Nor- 
wegian Synod, the Hauge's Syno 1, the Norwegian 
Free Church, the Brethren Synod, the Elling Synod, 
the Santal Committee, the Zion Society and the In- 
tersynodical Orient Mission — which in 191 5 contribu- 
ted $235,000, an average of sixty-nine cents per mem- 
ber. The General Synod contributed in the same 
year $117,000, an average of thirty-three cents. The 
General Council contributed $119,000, an average of 
twenty-four cents. The United Synod in the South* 
contributed $20,000, an average of forty cents per 
member. The Synodical Conference contributed 
$56,000, an avera.^e of six cents per member. Not 
included in the above figures is the work of the Syn- 
odical Conference for the American negro which 
amounted in 1910-12 to $66,000. The Joint Synod 
of Ohio contributed $16,800, an average of eleven 
cents per member. The Danish Society contributed 
$7,825, an av'='rage of fifty-five cents per member. The 
Iowa Synod contributed $16,000. It is estimated that 
the avera?;e yearly per capita contribution of Amer- 
ican Lutherans to missions is twenty-three cents. The 
fields of American Lutheranism include Africa, Mad- 
agascar, China, India, Japan, the East Indies and 
South America. 

It has been impossible in this brief account to give 
a separate place to the work of women's or other 
auxiliary societies, which have contributed so largely 



♦Contributions not reported through the regular treasurer 
bring the per capita contribution to fifty-three cents. 



68 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

to the work of missions. The actual financial ad- 
ditions brought by these societies may be easily com- 
puted, but not the interest which they have roused, 
the information which they have disseminated, the 
prayers which they have offered. May they long con- 
tinue their generous work! 

Many persons and some churches hold the opin- 
ion that missionary work can be done in a haphazard 
fashion, each man following what he believes to be 
the divine direction within him. Devoted men who 
counted their lives as nothing so that they might serve 
Christ have gone to preach to the Hindu without un- 
derstanding his language or being able to speak it and 
have counted with ill-founded joy thousands of con- 
verts who had in reality not comprehended a word of 
the message. The coast of Africa has within its soil 
the bodies of many missionaries who alone, unsupported 
by home supplies, unfitted for their task, have laid 
down their lives in a glorious but useless endeavor. 

Enterprises of this sort have not been a part of 
missionary work in the Lutheran Church, which be- 
lieves that the foundation of the Indian or African 
Church must be laid surely and substantially, no mat- 
ter how slowly, that adult baptism cannot take place 
without understanding, that only those may share the 
communion of Christ's Church who know His Gos- 
pel, and that with the precious message to the soul 
there should go also the uplifting of the body so that 
it may become a worthy vessel. 



CHAPTER III. 

The Lutheran Church in India 

The Land. 

The people 
The religions 
The Caste System 
The moral condition 
The English in India 
The contrasts of India 
The word "heathen" 

The German Societies. 

Basel 

Gossner 

Leipsic 

Hermannsburg 

Breklura or Schleswig-Holstein 

The Scandinavian Societies. 

Home Mission to the Santals 
Danish Evangelical Lutheran Missionary Society 
Evangelical National Missionary Society of Sweden 
The Church of Sweden Mission 

The American Societies. 

The beginnings 

The General Synod 

The General Council 

The Missouri Synod 

The Joint Synod of Ohio 

The Synod of Iowa 

The American Danes, Norwegians and Swedes. 

Conclusion. 



Chapter III. 

THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN INDIA 

The pen seems to falter before the task 
of describing India, with its varied 
landscapes, its dense population, its fascinating his- 
tory, its great learning, its dark ignorance. Its area 
is one million eight hundred thousand square miles, 
which is seven times that of the German Empire and 
fifteen times that of the British Isles. From north to 
south it measures about one thousand nine hundred 
miles and the distance across the upper part of its 
great triangle is about the same. In the north the 
high wall of the Himalaya Mountains separates it 
from the rest of Asia; below lies the broad valley of 
the Ganges River; still farther to the south a high 
table-land. There are all varieties of temperature, 
climate and landscape. 

Even more varied than the temperature 
The People. , i i i • i i • 

and the landscape is the population, 

which numbers about three hundred and twenty 

millions or about one fifth of the population of the 

globe. The people are divided chiefly into two large 

groups, the Aryans who live for the most part in the 

north and who have continued the ancient Indian 

civilization, and the Dravidians in the south who in 



72 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

development belong among the "nature peoples." In 
addition there are about sixty-five million Mohamme- 
dans, of many races and nations, whose religion is a 
uniting bond. The Indians speak in all one hundred 
and forty-seven languages and dialects. 

The chief religion of India is thus de- 
The Religions, scribed by Doctor Warneck. "Two 

hundred and eight millions have been 
won by Brahmanical Hinduism, which combines the 
most varied forms from the sublimest philosophy to 
the coarsest idolatry, profound speculations and the 
wildest fantasies, even childish absurdities, moral 
truths and immoral myths in wonderful mixture." 
The Indian believes in so many gods that it is difficult 
for him to conceive of one God. Next to Brahman- 
ism in number of adherents comes Mohammedanism 
and below it the demon worship of the mountain 
tribes. 

In arddition to the many perpendicular 
The Caste divisions of the people into religious 

sects, there are the horizontal divisions 
of caste. This strange institution from which emanci- 
pation is almost impossible is an immeasurable hind- 
rance to Christian missions. We have been taught 
that there are four castes, (i) priests, (2) warriors, 
(3) merchants and sudra, including peasants, arti- 
sans and servants, and (4) outcastes. But these are 
only general divisions. In South India there are said 
to be nineteen thousand caste divisions. Every trade 




CHAPEL OF LEPER ASYLUM, KODUR, INDIA. (JOINT SYNOD 

OF OHIO) 



INMATES OF LEPER ASYLUI 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN CHINA 73 

becomes a caste, and even the Christian Church is 

regarded as a caste. 

_, -, - *'*The moral condition of the people 

The Moral ^ ^ 

Condition should be described as one of apathy 

of India. Qj. ^^gj^ deadness rather than as one 

of violent and malignant opposition to virtue. Their 
lives are destitute of stimulus and incentive. Their 
religion furnishes no motive for the present and in- 
cites no aspiration for the future. The thought of 
bettering their own condition or of doing aught to 
benefit another's is foreign to their minds. The Ori- 
ental doctrine of fate is ever present to quench all up- 
ward endeavor. It is their destiny to be what and 
as they are, and who are they to contend with destiny ? 
Their chief faults are licentiousness and lack of truth- 
fulness. Intemperance is not usually a vice of the 
Hindu people, though in recent years the introduc- 
tion of cheap foreign liquors, and the course of the 
government in licensing drinking-places, has stimu- 
lated the use of intoxicating liquor among all classes. 
The disposition of the people is mild, and crimes are 
no more common among them than among the people 
of other races." 

Of the evils of child marriage and the wrongs of 
widowhood we need take no space to tell. To him 
w^ho does not believe in missions, who holds that for 
India its native religions are best, its own thought 
sufficient, it is only necessary to point to the two 
million wives under ten years of age or to the evils of 



^Encyclopedia of Missions: 'India". 



74 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

the temple system. India still requires help from 
without and from above. 

About the year looo a Mohammedan 
i^^IndiL^^''^ conqueror entered India from Afgha- 
nistan and gradually all India was 
brought under Moslem control. There was continual 
strife, however, between the Moslems and the original 
Hindus who, here and there, were able to rise against 
the galling rule of their conquerors. Early in the 
Seventeenth Century the English came to India first 
as humble merchants, then as rulers. When in 1857 
the India mutiny, fomented by dispossessed native 
princes, shook the power of the great East India Com- 
pany, the English government took the place of the 
company and India became British territory. 

To-day the fourteen provinces, in which are 
six hundred and seventy-five native states, are British 
soil. Whatever we may think the right or wrong of the 
power by which Great Britain has seized and held her 
vast possessions, we can feel only admiration for her 
colonial administration. She has come to feel toward 
India a sense of duty; she has governed justly; she has 
established good order and peace. She has taken care of 
the sick, has educated the young and has feed the starv- 
ing in time of famine. She has, best of all, made it 
possible for the Christian Church to do its great work. 
The contrasts of India are described 
o/'lndi^"^^^^*^ by a writer in the Missionary Witness. 
''This is a land of blazing light, and 
yet, withal, the land of densest darkness. There is 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN CHINA 75 

wonderful beauty with repulsive ugliness. A land 
of plenty, full of penury. Ultra cleanliness and un- 
mentionable filthiness. There is kindness to all crea- 
tures, combined with hardest cruelty. All life held 
sacred in a land of murders. A people of mild speech 
given to violent language. Proud of learning and 
sunken in ignorance. Seekers for merit, resigned to 
fate. Unbelieving and full of cruelty. Belief in one 
god co-existent with the worship of 330,000,000 dei- 
ties. Intensely religious, yet destitute of piety. Al- 
together, India is lost humanity gone to seed; a dis- 
eased degenerate herb become a noxious weed. At 
least this is the condition of her society.'* 
The Word I^ ^s characteristic of the wider charity 

"heathen". and also the wider knov/ledge of our 

time, that we speak of unchristianized nations as 
"non-Christians' ' rather than as "heathen," a term 
which, especially in India, has given offense. The 
exchange of terms is one greatly to be desired, since 
it removes a cause of offense and also makes clearer 
than ever the power of the Gospel to enlighten and to 
bless. For the darkness and misery of India there 
is one hope of change — that she may cease to be "non- 
Christian". 

To India Lutherans were, as we have seen, the 
first of the Protestant Churches to carry the Gospel. 
Since the landing of Ziegenbalg and Pliitschau in 
Tranquebar, eighty-six years before the Baptist Carey 
went to Bengal, Lutherans have been preaching and 
teaching according to the command of their Master. 



76 the story of lutheran missions 

German Societies. 

The Use We shall consider first of all the Ger- 

of Maps. man missfonary societies and their 

labors. Before beginning the study of any particular 
field the reader should refer to the brief account 
of the origin and history of these societies in 
Chapter II. He should also refer constantly to the 
map, marking, if possible, on a map of his own the 
position of each foreign field. Thus he will add 
not only accuracy but interest to his missionary study. 

A Gift for The Basel Society, which is, it should 

Missions. be remembered, not wholly Lutheran 

in organization, support, or workers, had already es- 
tablished missions in other places when, in 1834, 1^ 
received a gift of $10,000 from the Prince of Schon- 
berg with the stipulation that it should start a mis- 
sion in a new place. The spot selected was the Mala- 
bar district on the west coast of India on the 
opposite side of the peninsula from Tranquebar and 
thither three missionaries were promptly sent. 

The country which they had selected 
fpelrtneTand!' ^^^ beautiful and fertile, but the 

hearts of the inhabitants were hard 
soil. A proverb expressed their carelessness and in- 
difference: ^What can man do? Idleness is good, 
sleep is better, death is best of all.^* In the mission 
field six different languages were spoken, and thus 
long study and much literary work were required 
before permanent results could be hoped for. 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN CHINA 77 

Establishing their first station at Telicheri the mis- 
sionaries worked out into the surrounding country. 
As soon as possible they began to preach, to establish 
schools and to translate the Bible into the native 
tongues. 

Not the least of their difficulties was 
An Experiment. , i , r • i • • • • i 

the lack oi tried missionary principles. 

One worker was convinced that the only way to im- 
press the heathen was to live their life with them. Per- 
suading other new missionaries to his way of thinking, 
he left the mission buildings and established himself 
with thirty Hindu boys in a little hut. The floor 
served for chairs and table and the missionary ate 
with his pupils three times a day their meal of rice. 
An illness brought him to his senses and he returned 
to a sane way of living. 

With such devotion and diligence did the Basel 
missionaries labor that when one of the earliest work- 
ers was married eight years after the establishment 
of the mission one hundred and twenty Christians 
came to the wedding. Spreading northward into the 
Bombay Presidency the mission had established by 
191 3 twenty-six stations with sixty missionaries and 
not less than twenty thousand Christians. 
A Christian One of the chief stations is at Manga- 

Settlement. lore. Outside the town is Balmatta 

Hill round the base of which lies a Christian village. 
Here live the missionaries and their wives, here are 
schools, here a theological seminary for the training 
of native workers. Near by is an almshouse; in this 



78 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

building weavers ply their trade; yonder there is a 

printing establishment; here are stores, a bakery, a 

carpenter shop. Crowning all, there stands on the 

hill top the Church of Peace. 

The famous industrial work of the 

Missionaries Basel Society is actively promoted. 

Provide Work Here idle hands are trained to work, 

for Converts? , , i i i t r 

here those who have been makers oi 

wine are given an occupation better suited to a 
Christian profession, here the very poor are able to 
earn their livings. There is a difference of opinion 
about the value of industrial work in co/mection with 
missions, some students believing that the spiritual 
work is hampered and confused by this connection with 
commercial life and that undesirable and unfaithful 
converts are attracted by the prospect of having work 
to do. This danger, however, the Basel Mission seems 
to have avoided. An unprejudiced observer writes: 
^'Even those who for these reasons believe that only 
necessity will justify the starting of mission indus- 
tries, have to admit that this Basel work has made a 
real contribution to economic progress and to the 
dignifying of labor as worthy of a Christian." It 
is interesting to note that in ::he Basel weaving shop 
at Mangalore was first made khaki cloth, which now 
covers so many million soldiers. 

The most famous of the Basel missionaries in India 
was Doctor Gundertj who labored for more than 
twenty years, then returning to the Fatherland as- 
sumed the work left by Doctor Barth, another Lu- 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN CHINA 79 

theran director of the Basel Society. His remaining 
years were filled with labor for the cause which he 
loved, writing, speaking and editing missionary jour- 
nals. His wife, Julia, was the first woman missionary 
sent out by the Basel Society. 

A Stirring The Gossner Mission was founded in 

Charge. 1844 when Pastor Gossner sent four 

missionaries to India w^ith the instructions, ^^Believe, 
hope, love, pray, burn, waken the dead! Hold fast 
by prayer ! Wrestle like Jacob ! Up, up my brethren ! 
The Lord is coming and to everyone he will say, 
* Where hast thou left the souls of these heathen ?' " 

Arriving at Calcutta the first group of missionar- 
ies endeavored to establish a colony but were not 
successful. They saw among the coolies on the city 
streets, many men of a distinct type and discovered 
that they were Kols. Among these people, once of a 
better standing, but now degraded and oppressed, the 
Gossner missionaries determined to set to work. 
Discourage- Selecting the capital of the local gov- 

"^e^^- ernment, Ranchi, for their headquar- 

ters they named the spot where they settled Bethesda. 
For five years they worked without gaining a single 
convert. Utterly discouraged they asked for per- 
mission to seek another field. To this request Pastor 
Gossner answered as follows: "Whether the Kols 
will be converted or not is the same to you. If they 
will not accept the Word they must hear it to their 
condemnation. Your duty is to pray and preach to 
them. We at home will also pray more earnestly." 



80 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

Presently four natives were baptized, 
Reward. , . . i i i 

others came to inquire, and a church 

was built. When it was begun there were sixty mem- 
bers of the congregation ; when it was completed there 
were three hundred. So thoroughly was the work of 
evangelization done, so well grounded were these 
degraded people in the faith, that in 1857 ^t the 
time of the great mutiny when the natives of India 
rose against the English the nine hundred adherents 
of the Gossner mission refused to give up that faith 
to which they had been baptized. Here is an extra- 
ordinary episode in missionary history. In 1845 the 
deepest degradation, misery and superstition, which 
included the worship of idols and demons and even 
the recollection of the sacrifice of living beings — in 
1857 the most exalted Christian faith and courage. 

From now on the mission prospered and its converts 
multiplied. Presently work was begun among the 
Hindus and Mohammedans in the Ganges Valley 
with a station at Ghazipur. 

A visitor to Ranchi has written down some of his 
impressions of the chief station of the Gossner mis- 
sion. 

Impressions of "^.^ ^^"^^^ ^ ^^^^^ ^^7^ ^P^^^ ^ ^.^^^^ 
a Mission with the greatest delight, there is so 

Station. much to see and to hear. There is a 

Christian hostel here on the mission premises, which 
seems to be a great power for good. It is a large 
square courtyard with open rooms all around, in which 
any Christians are allowed to put up who may be in 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN CHINA 81 

from the district on business; they get their firewood 
free, and the only condition of admittance is that they 
attend morning and evening worship. Occasionally 
heathen people stop there too. The idea is a capital 
one, as it keeps the missionaries in touch with their 
native converts in a way which otherwise it would 
be very difficult to accomplish. We visited the print- 
ing press and the boys* and girls' schools. I was 
particularly struck by the bright little girls, who 
answered so intelligently when I questioned them, 
and whose part-singing was beautiful. The Kols 
are naturally musical, their ear being, as a rule, very 
good. The girls sang softly and sweetly ; some of them 
even sang alone for me. They were being taught by 
a native who seemed to have a great deal of musical 
talent ; he had just picked up a new thing himself — by 
ear, I suppose — and was putting it to notes for his 
girls. 

"I was greatly struck by the practical work being 
done by these German missionaries. The children 
were being taught in an elementary and practical man- 
ner suitable to their village life. For instance, the 
girls were given a sum; one stated it on the black- 
board, another worked it out in her head and gave the 
answer, and then both had a pair of scales and weights 
with some sand, and before the others they weighed 
out the amount which, according to the sum, they 
were entitled to. In the same practical way the girls 
were taught cooking and other things which would 
be useful to them as the wives of country villagers. 



82 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

"I was taken to see the theological seminar}^ and 
boys' boarding school, and the fine church, where about 
eight hundred of the native congregation meet every 
Sunday for the worship of the true God; and yet 
we are told that missions are a failure! 

*^One very striking thing in the seminary w^as the 
singing class; I w^as amazed at the splendid way in 
which they rendered selections from HandePs ^Mes- 
siah'." 

One of the chief enterprises of the 
Gossner Mission is its famous leper 
asylum at Purulia. The asylum was founded by Mis- 
sionary Uffman in 1888, the immediate occasion being 
the driving of a number of poor lepers from their 
miserable huts. The missionary offered them a refuge 
in his compound and there relieved them as much as 
possible. From this small beginning has grown the 
largest and finest institution of its kind in India. 
There is a model village on a tract of fifty acres of 
evergreen woods, with sixty spacious houses, offices, 
dispensaries, a hospital, prayer rooms and a lofty 
Lutheran church. Four-fifths of the inhabitants are 
Christians. The medical treatment is that prescribed 
by the latest investigations of scientific men who have 
discovered the blessed fact that the prevention of 
leprosy for the children of lepers is possible and in- 
expensive. 

„ . A visitor describes thus a Christmas 

Hope in 

the Midst Celebration. *'The lepers came march- 

of Misery. j^^^ ^^^ singing hymns and pla3^ing in- 

struments. Some limp slowly, some blind ones are led 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN CHINA 83 

by their comrades, some are carried. At last all are 
seated in the sunshine. There were knitted garments, 
mufflers, scrapbooks, toys, something for everybody, 
and how grateful they were! But when we saw the 
disfigured hands held out for the gifts, or little leper 
girls caressing their new dolls, our hearts were deeply 
touched, and we could hear those leper boys making 
music with their new instruments almost through the 
whole night. 

**Hear this grateful letter from a leper saint. 'Lady, 
Peace! your love-heart is so great that it reached this 
leper village — reached this very place. I being Guoi 
Aing, have received from you a bed^s wadded quilt. 
In coldest weather, covered at night, my body will have 
warmth, will have gladness. Alas, the wideness of the 
world prevents us seeing each other face to face, but 
wait until the last day, when with the Lord we meet 
together in heaven's clouds — then what else can I 
utter but a whole-hearted mouthful of thanks? You 
will want to know what my body is like — there is no 
wellness in it. No feet, no hands, no sight, no feel- 
ing; outside body greatly distressed, but inside heart 
is greatest peace, for the inside heart has hopes. What 
hopes? Hopes of everlasting blessedness, because of 
God's love and because of the Savior's grace. These 
words are from Guoi Aing's mouth. The honorable 
pencil-person is Dian Sister.' 

*'Beyond question this work at Purulia is one of 
the most successful concrete results of Christian mis- 
sions that the world can show." 



84 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

A Costly The founder, Missionary Uffman, 

Sacrifice. paid a costly sacrifice of devotion to 

the cause which he loved in the death of his oldest 
daughter from leprosy. Among the v^orkers for the 
lepers w^as the Rev. F. P. Hahn, v^ho gave forty-two 
years of labor in the mission, dying in 1910. He had 
been awarded, as have been other Lutheran mission- 
aries, the Kaiser-i-Hind golden medal, which the Brit- 
ish government bestows only upon those who have 
rendered distinguished service in humanitarian causes. 
The reports of the Gossner Society for 191 3 re- 
corded fifty German missionaries and seventy-one 
thousand Christians. The Gossner mission is the 
largest of the Lutheran enterprises in India. 

Th C d '^^^ Danish Halle mission among the 

of God Tamils in Tranquebar had been 

Unheeded. founded by Ziegenbalg and Pliitschau 

as we have seen. Then during a period of unbelief 
at home, this noble mission declined. It was no won- 
der that the command of God was forgotten when a 
writer upon ecclesiastical affairs could express himself 
thus: ^'The Church of Christ is not suited to such 
nations as the East Indians, the Greenlanders, the 
Laplanders, and the Esquimaux. These people be- 
long to the race of apes and it is useless to preach the 
Gospel to them until they become men." 

At the time of the one-hundreth an- 

A Decline. . r 1 r i» e ^ 

niversary or the loundmg or the mis- 
sion, Madras, Cuddalore, Tanjore and Trichinopoli 
had been allowed to pass into the hands of English 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN CHINA 85 

missionaries, smaller stations had ceased to be occupied 
at all, and the Danish Halle Society was limited to 
work at Tranquebar and Poriear. In 1825 a royal 
command put an end officially to the mission. 

In 1837 there died the last Danish Halle mission- 
ary, Kemerer by name, who bewailed upon his death 
bed the sad condition which he left. But the church 
which he loved was not to remain without witnesses. 
The Leipsic Society^ whose origin we have described 
above, sent to Tranquebar in 1840 John Henry Charles 
Cordes, who was a son-in-law of Kemerer. 
A Single Alone, Cordes set to work. Feeling 

Witness. the need of native helpers he began 

once more a training school for them at Poriear. When 
in 1845 England bought Tranquebar he saved the mis- 
sion to the Lutheran Church. At first the circum- 
stances under which Cordes labored were dishearten- 
ing in the extreme. Then two missionaries, Ochs and 
Schwartz arrived. A third station at Majaweram, 
begun and given up by the English, was incorporated. 
A Delicate ^^ 1 846 several hundred Tamils from 

Question. Madras turned from the mission of the 

Church of England into the mission of the Leipsic 
Society on account of caste difficulties. One of the 
most delicate questions which must be met by mission- 
ary policy in India is that of caste. It has been the pol- 
icy of most churches to decline to recognize that which 
is so contrary to the spirit of the Christian religion. 
The policy of the Leipsic missionaries has been to 
ignore the question, trusting to the purifying and up- 



86 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

lifting effect of the Gospel eventually to solve the 
problem. 

Q^^ Gradually under Missionary Cordes 

Citadels and his successors some of the old 

Retaken. ^^^.j^ ^f ^^le Danish-Halle Mission v^as 

resumed and new stations were established. Work 
was begun once more in Madras, where Schultze had 
labored. Cumbaconam, where Christian Frederick 
Schwartz had preached, where ten thousand heathen 
priests were supported by the populace, where heathen 
temple touched heathen temple, heard again the Gospel, 
preached now by another Schwartz. In Sidabarum 
where the natives declared: *^Christians may not live 
here; the God Siva will not endure it," the Leipsic 
missionaries won seven hundred converts. 

For more than thirty years Cordes worked in India 
and until his death in 1892, fifty years after he had 
been ordained as a missionary, he busied himself with 
missionary affairs. 

Brotherly The Leipsic Society is famous for the 

Support. thoroughness and solidity of its work. 

Its last report gives twenty-four main stations which 
lie chiefly in the districts of Trichinopoli, Tanjore, 
Coimbatore and Madura. It has also small missions 
in Rangoon, Penang and Colombo for the sake of the 
Tamil Christians who have emigrated to these places. 
In the southern part of its territory it is aided by the 
Swedish Church Mission. Together the Leipsic Mis- 
sion and the Swedish Church Mission have fifty-eight 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN CHINA 87 

missionaries at work. There is a Christian com- 
munity of twenty-two thousand and there are fourteen 
thousand pupils in the schools. 

The following description given by a young Leipsic 
missionary in 1890 indicates at the same time the 
enormous task before the Church and the courage with 
with which the scattered workers are endeavoring to 
solve it. 

A Great ^^On the evening of November 5th we 

Festival. went by rail together to Majaweram, 

in order to celebrate Brother Meyner's wedding. This 
fell just in the time of the great Bathing Festival to 
which as many as fifty to sixty thousand assemble. On 
the chief day we went to the bathing-place, and looked 
at the matter a little more closely. There was a 
tumultuous throng ; hardly to be penetrated. We were 
the only white faces among all these dusky multitudes. 
The best place for viewing the whole affair appeared 
to be the flat roof of the idol temple. We climbed up 
to it by a ladder, without any opposition. From here 
we could overlook the human masses; they stood close 
packed together, some bathing, some chatting, etc. We 
saw also how they were carrying about different idols, 
vvhich Vv'ere adorned with gold, silver and precious 
stones. All were greeted by the crowd with uplifted 
hands and loud rrclaims. In view of this our hearts 
might well sink, as we beheld heathenism yet sub- 
sisting in its full, unbroken might. If we did not 
know 'I'd^t God^s truth gains the victory, we should 
despair of the possibility that India will ever be con- 



88 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

verted. It is an almost impregnable citadel of Satan, 
and the individual mission stations are like oases in 
the waste, and the individual missionary is as a drop 
in the ocean. For instance, in each of such cities as 
Sidabarum, Cuddalore, Cumbaconam, etc., of forty 
or fifty thousand inhabitants, there is only a single mis- 
sionary! What can a single man effect over against 
such masses? Even yet it is only a siege from with- 
out-^we have not yet made our w^ay into the interior 
of the fortress. Nevertheless we will not therefore 
despond, but with fresh courage attack the task in the 
name of the Lord — you at home with prayer and gifts, 
we in the land itself by preaching the Gospel to the 
poor, blinded people, and attracting such as are willing 
to let themselves be saved. We know that the Lord 
by little can accomplish much. But Thou, O Lord 
Jesus, accept our poor, weak will, our slender strength, 
take also the offer of our youth, and fashion us into 
men, and into instruments of Thy mercy! Do Thou 
Thyself fulfill Thy work in power and bring hither 
to Thy flock them that are scattered abroad in the 
world, so that Thou canst soon appear in Thy glory 
and conduct us out of the conflict and strife of time 
into Thy kingdom of peace ! Amen." 

A quarter of a century has changed greatly the 
situation in India. The siege has advanced nobly and 
many fortresses have been taken. 

Another Brave The station of the Hermannsburg So- 
Record. ciety in India is in the southern part 

of Telugu land in the Presidency of Madras and the 




m 

H 

< 

O 

W 
Q 



5^ § 



o 
w 

H 

3 

g 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN CHINA 89 

district of Nellore. This mission has a history of 
bitter opposition from the natives and cruel sufferings 
from cholera, but its workers have bravely persisted, 
longing for a larger force. After fifty years of work 
they write hopefully: ''Our work in the Telugu mis- 
sion is a blessed one. The plot is small, but it will 
be a great harvest field. Our preaching meets with 
great opposition, but opposition is better than a dull 
indifference. Had we but the means to offer salva- 
tion to the pariahs they would come in throngs.'' 

After fifty years the mission reports a staff of fifteen 
missionaries in twenty stations and a Christian com- 
munity of more than three thousand. A leper asylum 
is one of its enterprises. 

A Promising The last of the German missionary 
"Pi^^^' societies to establish itself in India is 

the Breklum or Schleswig-Holstein Society, It had 
been recommended to work in the Bastar land, but 
the king refused to allow the missionaries to stay and 
they went therefore to Salur in 1883. Though the 
mission is still young, it provides for all varieties of 
missionary work, its schools are first-class, it has es- 
tablished a training school for native workers and a 
leper asylum and deaconesses are in charge of Zenana 
work. 

The Breklum Mission lies partly in high land 
where the temperature is that of Europe. Here in the 
hills the various popular religious cults of India had 
not penetrated; the inhabitants were demon worship- 
ers. Among them the Gospel has been received. To 



90 THE STORY OP LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

the missionaries it seems that dawn is at hand; in the 
words of one, ^* there is throughout the land a rustling 
as though rain is coming/' 

In 19 1 3 the mission reported twenty-seven German 
missionaries and sixteen thousand five hundred con- 
verts. 

Work It is with a sad heart that the lover 

Interrupted. of missions contemplates the condition 
of German missions in India to-day. Instead of the 
longed-for and expected harvest there is blight and 
desolation; instead of plenteous rain there is drought. 
These Germans, pious, diligent and successful, find 
drawn across the history of their work a deeper rift 
than that which was drawn by the mutiny of '57. 
Removed from their missions and either held as prison- 
ers of war or returned to Germany, they watch with 
distress as the labor of years is disastrously halted. 
The Basel mission which is partly manned by Swiss, 
is not so seriously affected as the Leipsic, the Her- 
mannsburg, the Gossner and the Schleswig-Holstein 
or Breklum missions, which are deprived of their 
w^orkers and deprived of support. 

Lutherans in other lands are doing all that they 
can to care for these enterprises. The Leipsic Mis- 
sion will be looked after by the Lutheran Church of 
Sweden; the Schleswig-Holstein or Breklum Mission 
by the General Council; the Hermannsburg Mission 
by the Joint Synod of Ohio, and the Gossner Mission 
by the General Synod. In this cause the American 
Norwegian and Danish bodies have offered their ser- 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN CHINA 91 

vices, as might have been expected from their char- 
acteristic liberality. 

Scandinavian Societies. 

A Tr s- T^t Home Mission to the Santals, 

formation in founded, as we have learned in Chap- 
Fifty Years. ^^^ jj ^y Hans Peter Borreson and 

Lars Skrefsrud w^as so called because the founders 
wished it to have the nature of a **home'' from which all 
sorts of improving influences should flow. The Santals 
are akin to the Kols of the Gossner mission. Terribly 
oppressed, especially by Hindu money lenders, they 
rose in i860 in a bloody rebellion which called public 
attention to their misery. In 1867 the two ardent 
Scandinavians set to work among them, and in a short 
time saw the harvest beginning to ripen. The chief 
station is at Ebenezer and round about are many 
smaller and independent stations. Good schools and a 
mission press from which a monthly paper, "The 
Friend of the Santal", is issued, are among the means 
for education. The thirteen thousand five hundred 
Christians are so well trained that a great part of the 
mission work is conducted by them. In Assam the 
mission provides for its converts who have gone thither 
to work on the tea plantations. 

The mission is supported, as we shall see, not only 
by the Scandinavians of Europe, but by those of 
America. 

The Danish Evangelical Lutheran Missionary So- 
ciety has since 1862 stations in Pattambakam 



92 THE STORY OP LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

in South Arcot. It has twenty-seven men and women 
at work and a Christian community of over seventeen 
hundred. 

The terrible heat of Southern India is one of the 
conditions which make especially heroic the service 
of the Scandinavians who are accustomed to an almost 
arctic climate. In 1886 a Danish missionary wrote 
to his friends at home with no expectation that his 
letter would ever be printed: 

Heroic ^'Though only May, it is now ninety- 

Service, six degrees in the house night and day. 

Our little son, four years old, will often throw him- 
self despairingly on the fioor, exclaiming, 'O mother, 
this country is too warm, too warm; can't we go into 
the great ship again and sail home to Denmark ?' In the 
morning we find no application of our Danish hymn, 
'Renewed in strength by nightly rest'. The power of the 
hot, scorching wind is the same day and night. Yet 
we are thankful for general health. But we cannot 
help thinking how, when nature is the most withering 
upon us, she is opening into her fullest loveliness in 
Denmark. This very day letters were received from 
home, and all spoke of the Spring, of the beeches that 
were ready to leaf, of wood anemones and violets, of 
gardens filled with Easter lilies, crocuses, hyacinths, 
and all the other delicate and gracious flowers which 
are now covering the Danish land. Nor did the letters 
merely speak of them; for in one there were violets, 
in another tender beech leaves. We are fresh from 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN CHINA 93 

seeing all this; how living it all becomes on the re- 
ceipt of such letters. Involuntarily we exclaim: 
'The Pentecostal feast does nature keep 
In robes of flowery magnificence.' 
Ah! how lovely is Denmark!'' 

The contributions of Norway to India are given to 
the Home Mission to the Santals. 

Help in Time ^^^ Evangelical National Missionary 
of Famine. Society of Sweden works among the 

Gonds in the Central provinces of India. Beginning 
in 1877 it has now extended its work to include all 
natives in its vicinity. It has fifty-three Swedish 
workers. The most important station is Chindwara, 
where the senior missionary lives and where there are 
training schools and two large orphanages founded 
during the terrible famines of 1896 to 1900. Other 
institutions established during that trying period are 
industrial schools for men and women which are now 
self-supporting. There is also a hospital and very 
active Zenana work. 

A Missionary The Church of Sweden Mission in 
Family. India was begun in 1855 when two 

Swedish missionaries went into the service of the Leip- 
sic mission in Tamil land. In 1869 they were joined 
by Dr. C. J. Sandgren, who is still alive and at work 
surrounded by five of his children as fellow workers. 
In 1 901 several stations of the Leipsic mission were 
handed over to the independent control of the Swedes 
and since then the mission has grown rapidly. Madura 
is the central station and at Tirupater there is a fine 



94 THE STORY OP LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

hospital. The mission has profited greatly by the mass 
movements toward Christianity which have taken place 
in recent years in South India, in which whole villages 
have asked for baptism, a condition which brings new 
missionary problems. 

It is to this mission that there has passed during the 
war the work of the Leipsic Society. 

American Societies. 

Among the heroes of the American Lu- 

of the theran Church is Henry Melchtor 

American Lu- Muhlenberg who was born in Ger- 
theran Church. . ^ ^^ ^ > k . • 

many in 171 1 and died m America in 

1787. He was educated at the University of Gottin- 

gen from which he went to Halle to teach in the 

Orphanage and to prepare himself for missionary work 

in India. Instead he accepted a call to becom.e the 

pastor of the scattered congregations of Lutherans in 

Pennsylvania. When he arrived in 1742 he found the 

people without church buildings or schools and at the 

mercy of imposters who claimed to be clergymen. At 

once he began to preach and to organize. Travelling 

from New York to Georgia, doing pastoral work, 

forming constitutions for churches and for the first 

American Synod, he filled forty-five years to the brim 

with valuable work. Of him Doctor Henry E. Jacobs 

says: *'Depth of religious conviction, extraordinary 

inwardness of character, apostolic zeal for the spiritual 

welfare of individuals, absorbing devotion to his calling 

and all its details, were among his most marked char- 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN CHINA 95 

acteristics. These were combined with an intuitive 
penetration and extended width of view, a statesman- 
like grasp of every situation in which he was placed, 
an almost prophetic foresight, coolness and discrimina- 
tion of judgment, and peculiar gifts for organization 
and discrimination/' 

Under the ministrations of Doctor Muhlenberg the 
Lutheran Church in America was firmly established. 
That his heart turned longingly to the first field of 
labor which he had selected, we know from his own 
records. In giving an account of the Third Con- 
vention of the Ministerium of Pennsylvania, he said 
that when the delegates gathered for an evening meet- 
ing at his house he told them of the Mission among 
the Malabars and among the Jews. Doubtless he 
was consoled by the hope that there might go from 
his American Church those who would do what he 
had wished to do. 

The First '^'^^ missionary consciousness of the 

Missionary new church found its first expression 

Undertaking. jg ^^ unsuccessful effort to evangelize 
the American Indian. In Georgia a little was accom- 
plished by the pious Salzburgers, but the withdrawal 
of the Indians from the neighborhood of white settle- 
ments and the growing and natural distrust which they 
felt for the whites soon put an end to missionary work 
among them. 

A Missionary ^^ *^ ^^^^ meeting in 1820 of the 
Institute General Synod, to which belonged the 

Discussed. gyj^^jg ^f Pennsylvania, New York, 

North Carolina, the Joint Synod of Ohio, and the 



96 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

Synods of Maryland and Virginia, the founding of a 
missionary institute like those of the Fatherland was 
suggested and discussed. Before this time congrega- 
tions had contributed individually to the work of 
foreign missions through the American Board, an inter- 
denominational society. 

The First ^^ ^^^ meeting of the West Pennsyl- 

Missionary vania Synod in Mechanicsburg in 1836 

Society. there was formed at the recommenda- 

tion of the General Synod a Central Missionary So- 
ciety whose object was ^*to send the Gospel of the Son 
of God to the destitute portions of the Lutheran 
Church in the United States of America by means of 
missions ; to assist for a season such congregations as are 
not able to support the Gospel; and, ultimately to co- 
operate in sending it to the heathen world. '* Later 
the name of the society was changed to "The Foreign 
Missionary Society of the Evangelical Lutheran 
Church in the United States of America." 

There had come meanwhile to the Lu- 
theran Church in America two appeals 
from the foreign field, one from Missionary Rhenius in 
India whose career we have described in Chapter II, 
the other from GiitzlaflE in China, whom we shall study 
in Chapter V. It was decided in answer to the appeal 
of Rhenius that John Christian Frederick Heyer 
should go to India as the first missionary of the General 
Synod. When it appeared probable that difficulties 
would arise on account of the connection with the in- 
terdenominational American Board under whose direc- 




A MALAGASY WITCH DOCTOR. 
NATIVE LUTHERAN MINISTERS IN MADAGASCAR. 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN CHINA 97 

tion Heyer was to go, he resigned, and in 1841 was 

sent by the Pennsylvania Synod which had withdrawn 

from the General Synod after the first meeting. The 

death of Rhenius and the return of his followers to 

the English mission made it possible for the Americans 

to select a wholly new field. 

In April, 1842, a hundred years after 

American ^^e arrival of Muhlenberg in America, 

Lutheran Mr. Heyer became the first fruit of his 

Missionary. . . , ^t <• /^ 

missionary hopes. Heyer was or Lrer- 

man birth and had come to America when he was 
fourteen years old. From 181 7 till 1841 he had been 
a home missionary, laboring in difficult and widely 
divided fields in Pennsylvania and Maryland, Indiana 
and Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri. Travelling from 
settlement to settlement often amid the greatest hard- 
ships, he had established churches and Sunday schools. 

No Longer When he accepted the call to India, he 

a Young Man. was almost fifty years old. A younger 
man might well have hesitated to meet the dangers 
of the sea, the menace of a foreign climate, the loneli- 
ness of exile. But Heyer knew neither fear nor hesi- 
tation. That he realized that dangers existed is shown 
by his own words: "I feel calm and cheerful, having 
taken this step after serious and prayerful considera- 
tion, and the approbation of the churches has encour- 
aged me thus far. But I am aware that ere long, 
amidst a tribe of men whose language will be strange 
to me, I shall behold those smiles only in remembrance, 
and hear the voice of encouragement only in dying 



98 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

whispers across the ocean, and then nothing but the 
grace of God, nothing but a thorough conviction of 
being in the path of duty, nothing but the approving 
smile of Heaven can keep me from despondency/' 
Eager to ^^ was thought best that Mr. Heyer 

Begin. should begin his v^ork in the Telugu 

country north of Madras. It w^as the beginning of the 
hot season when he arrived and he v^as advised to 
remain in Madras and commence the study of the 
language. But his impatient spirit would not let him 
rest. In spite of the intense heat, he travelled to 
Nellore and thence to Guntur, where, invited and 
welcomed by a godly Englishman, Henry Stokes, who 
was collector of the district ana who had earnestly 
wished for a missionary, he made an end of his long 
journey. On the first Sunday of August 1842, he 
held a service with the aid of an interpreter. 
Reinforce- At once^ according to the sound 

ments. method of the Lutheran missionary, 

he set about the establishing of schools. He began 
a school for beggars and another for a scarcely less 
despised class — Hindu girls. This was the first Hin- 
du girls' school. Within the first year he was able to 
report three adult baptisms. In two years two mis- 
sionaries came to his aid, a German, the Rev, L. P. 
Valett who came to start a mission of the North Ger- 
man Society at Rajahmundry and the Rev, Walter 
Gunn, who was sent out by the General Synod. 

In 1846 failing health compelled Fa- 
ther Heyer, as he is affectionately call- 
ed, to return to America. Two years later he re- 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN CHINA 99 

turned to Guntur, the visitation among the churches 
of the home land having been denied him. During 
the two years, however, he had studied medicine, 
in Baltimore, receiving his degree at the age of fifty- 
four. 

**Oh G ^^ India he discovered that in his ab- 

Where is sence little new work had been accom- 

thy Victory." p^j^j^^^ ^^ account of the feeble health 

of Mr. Gunn. Now, however, began a period of 
rapid advance. Father Heyer made missionary jour- 
neys into the Palnad district, and soon, encouraged 
by many conversions, he built in Gurzala, its chief 
town, a mission house, the money for which was fur- 
nished by Collector Stokes. Heyer's courage is shown 
by an incident of his life in Gurzala. The climate of 
this section is deadly, and on reaching there Heyer 
had his grave and coffin prepared so that his body 
might be buried and not burned. But he did not 
contract the fever and when he left the field he burned 
the coffin and repeated at the grave the words of Saint 
Paul, *'0 grave, where is thy victory?'* 

In 1850 the mission station of the North German 
or Bremen Society at Rajahmundry was taken over. 

_ , In 1857 Father Heyer returned once 

Back to A . 1 

the Home more to America, not to rest but to 

Mission devote twelve years to home mission 

work in the distant fields of Minne- 
sota. In the meantime discord arose at home. The 
disruption brought about in all elements and institu- 
tions of American society by the Civil War had its 



100 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

sad effect upon the Church. Support and mission- 
aries for the foreign work failed, and the Rajah- 
mundry station was about to pass from the hands of 
its founders into those of the Church Missionary 
Society of England. Father Heyer was in Germany 
at the time, but hearing of the danger threatening 
his beloved work, he set sail for America, and ap- 
peared suddenly at the meeting of the Pennsylvania 
Ministerium at Reading to plead that the mission 
be retained. He would go to India at once, he said, 
and in August 1869 he turned his face for the third 
time across the sea. He remained in Rajahmundry a 
little over a year. Then handing over his work to a 
successor, the Rev, H. G, Schmidt, he returned to 
America where he died in November 1873. 

Of him his biographer, the Rev. Dr. 

To India j^ B yjr^l^ ujj^ ^^^^ ^^ 

Once More. ^ ^ 

eulogy. His work at home and abroad 

makes him the most cosmopolitan character of his 
time. He had a world-vision, and his soul was rest- 
less unless it was in touch with the whole world. He 
saw what few in his day were able to see, that the 
Church stands for one supreme work which must be 
performed in the whole world and for all men. He 
will live in his Church when men of his day of much 
larger influence and more commanding place shall 
have been forgotten, all because he permitted no bounds 
to be set to the sphere of his work, except those which 
he recognized as set by his Savior and Lord." 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN CHINA 101 

Beside Father Heyer there labored in 

9\'^^ the early days of the Lutheran mission 

Laborers. -^ •' 

the Rev, Walter Gunn, who died after 
seven years of devoted service ; the Rev. Christian Wil- 
Ham Gronningj 3. missionary of the North German 
Society, w^ho entered the service of the American Lu- 
theran Church w^hen Rajahrnundry was transferred; 
the Rev, A. F. Heisej who was compelled by ill health 
to resign after eleven years of work; the Rev, W. 
E. Snyder, who died in 1859; the Rev. W, I. Cutter, 
who was compelled to return on account of the health 
of his wife after a short term; and the Rev, A. 
Long, who died of smallpox after eight years of 
faithful service. 

In 1869 the mission field in India was 
D *d d permanently divided, the Gunter sta- 

tion and the surrounding district be- 
coming the charge of the General Synod, the Rajah- 
mundry station becoming the charge of the General 
Council of which the Ministerium of Pennsylvania 
was now a part. Between the two missions there 
have been always the most cordial and helpful of re- 
lations. In spirit they have been one. 

We shall consider first the work of 
AW°^^ the General Synod. At the time of the 

division of the mission field the Rev, 
E. Unangst was the only representative of the Ameri- 
can Lutheran Church in India. For three years he had 
had no helper. He had seen since his arrival in 1858 
seven missionaries die or depart ; nevertheless his heart 



102 THE STORY OP LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

did not fail. For thirty-seven years he labored almost 
without interruption and happily participated not only 
in the sowing but in the reaping of the harvest. 

A Civil '^^^ ^^'^' ^^' ^' ^' ^^^P^^^^j ^ vet- 

War eran of the Civil War, served his first 

Veteran. ^^^^ ^^ ^ missionary from 1872 till 

1876. Returning for a second term in 1893 he was 
nine years later allowed by the General Synod to 
assume temporary charge of the Rajahmundry mis- 
sion, then passing through a period of confusion. In 
the service of the Rajahmundry mission he continued 
until his death. To him his fellow-workers paid this 
tribute: "As a missionary he was indefatigable, as 
a preacher eloquent and inspiring. He labored in 
season and out to inculcate self-support. Altogether 
this was a man to love." His work at Rajahmundry 
accomplished all that had been most hopefully ex- 
pected, for in place of the discord and disorganization 
which he found he left peace and order and the promise 
of a great future. 

In 1873 the Rev. Dr, L. L. Uhl was 
-piity sei^t to Guntur, and there (in 191 7) 

Years of he is Still laboring, vigorous, optimistic 

and in the words which Dr. Harpster 
applied to his own mental condition, "immensely con- 
tent.' Laborers younger than he have fallen, a few 
have become discouraged, but Dr. Uhl is still at work. 

In 1872, when a farewell meeting was 

The Children's j^ jj j Harrisburg for Dr. Uhl, there 
Missionary. ... 

was in his audience Adam D. Rowe, 

who determined then to devote himself to missionary 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN CHINA 103 

work. Conceiving the plan of collecting from the 
children of the Church the means for his support, he 
sailed for India. Worn out by his active labors, he 
died in 1882. Similarly there fell while at work, 
the Rev. John Nichols and the Rev, Samuel Kinsinger, 

A missionary who has been spared for many years 
of service is Dr, Anna S, Kugler, who went to India 
in 1883. Beginning in a humble way by caring for a 
few afflicted women, Dr. Kugler has stimulated and 
directed the founding of a large and finely equipped 
woman^s hospital. Capable, enthusiastic and deeply 
consecrated, she has been rewarded for years 
of unceasing labor by the realization of many of her 
hopes. The importance of Christian medical work 
is illustrated by an experience of Dr. Kugler. A 
neighboring rajah, various members of whose family 
had been cured in the hospital, expressed his grati- 
tude not only by a large gift, but also by the making 
of a metrical translation of the Gospels into Telugu. 

To-day the Guntur Mission has in its service thirty- 
nine missionaries and twelve Anglo-Indian assistants. 
In addition it has eight hundred and sixty-one native 
workers, who include Bible women, colporteurs and 
catechists. It has a baptized native membership of about 
fifty thousand. It possesses twenty-one church build- 
ings and school buildings, one hundred and ninety- 
six schoolhouses and prayer houses, two hospitals, 
three dispensaries and two college and high school 
buildings. Its college is the only Lutheran college 
in India. Its last biennium has been extraordinarily 



104 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

blessed and unceasingly does it call like all other mis- 
sionary enterprises for more workers, larger sums of 
money, and more fervent prayers. 

. T,, . The record of the Mission of the Gen- 

A Man of 

Practical eral Council is a brave one. When 

^^' Father Heyer returned to Rajahmun- 

dry after his appeal to the Ministerium of Pennsyl- 
vania that the station be not given over to the Church 
of England, he was followed in a few months by the 
Rev, F. J. Becker, who had scarcely more than be- 
gun his preparation for active service when he died. 
In a few months his successor, the Rev, H, C, Schmidt, 
arrived, and subsequently the Rev, Iver K, Poulsen, 
For a short tim.e, until the final return of Father 
Heyer to America, there were three missionaries on 
the field. Beside his fine service as a preacher and 
teacher. Doctor Schmidt is especially remembered for 
his wise care of the property of the mission. He is 
the third of a trio of workers in the Rajahmundry mis- 
sion who have stood in the eyes of their Church above 
their fellow men, the others being Father Heyer and 
Doctor Harpster. At the time of Doctor Schmidt's 
retirement. Doctor Harpster became the director of 
the mission. Of him we have given above a brief 
account. 

The Rev. Poulsen withdrew in 1888 
A Sad Toll. - , , , 

after seventeen years or active service 

in the Rajahmundry mission, and, coming to the 

United States, died at the age of sixty-seven in the 

active pastorate. Within a few years two promising 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN CHINA 105 

young men, A, B, Carlson and H, G. B, Artmatij 
both trained in the Philadelphia Theological Semi- 
nary, arrived, took up the work which so urgently 
needed them and in a short time died. Two others, 
the Rev, Franklin S. Dietrich and the Rev. William 
Gronning also laid down their lives, the former 
after seven, the latter after four years of service. 
Gronning, a son of C. W. Gronning, was a brilliant 
scholar, an eloquent preacher and a trained musician. 
His parentage and his early training had bred in him 
a deep love for missions and his loss was irreparable. 

Not the least heavy of the blows which the mission 
suffered was the death of the Rev, F, W , Weiskotten, 
who was sent to India to inspect and report on the 
affairs of the mission. Accompanying his daughter to 
the field, he died on the homev/ard journey and was 
buried at sea off the coast of France in December 
1900. 

To-day the Rajahmundry mission reports over 
twenty-four thousand members, about thirteen thou- 
sand of whom are communicants. Its missionaries 
number eighteen and the total number of all its work- 
ers is about five hundred and fifty. It owns valuable 
property and conducts a widely useful medical work. 

The first money which was given toward the Rajah- 
mundry hospital was contributed by the children in 
the surgical ward of the German Hospital in Phila- 
delphia. 



106 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

The first medical missionary, Doctor 
Stor°"^ '^^ Lydia Woerner, describes in an inci- 
dent of her day's work the misery of 
India and its great hope. 

'^Early one bright sunshiny morning, during the 
monsoon season, I came through a side street in our 
town, passing a long, high, gray wall. Above the wall 
I saw palm, banana, mangoe and tamarind trees, which 
almost hid the roofs of several houses. 

"As I looked I noticed a little green door in the 
wall. When I asked my helpers about the place, 
they all knew it by the little green door, which they 
told me was always locked on the inside. It had sev- 
eral small holes through which the secluded women 
peeped without being seen. Our Bible woman had 
tried many times to gain entrance, but was told by 
voices from behind the little green door that her pres- 
ence would pollute the place. One of the helpers sug- 
gested that we pray to God to open that little green 
door for us. 

"A few nights later, during a terrific storm and a 
pouring rain, two native officials came with an urgent 
call to take me to the house of another official. I did 
not know him nor where he lived, but they told me 
his wife had been suffering intensely for several days, 
so my helper and I picked up the emergency bag and 
started off with them. On the way w^e were told that 
every native midwife available had tried to relieve the 
patient, but had failed. Large offerings had been 
made to the gods in their favorite temple. Even the 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN CHINA 107 

river goddess had been implored to give help, by 
sacrifices throw^n into her waters. As a last resort, 
they had come to seek help from the missionary doctor. 

*We w^ere drenched and stiff, as we crawled out of 
the oxcart. It was very dark. The streets were 
flooded, but a flash of lightning revealed to us that we 
were in front of the little green door — and it was open. 
Outside, under umbrellas and blankets, were groups 
of men — friends of the husband — who had come to 
sympathize with him because his wife was giving him 
so much trouble. The sympathy was all for the hus- 
band. Probably, after all the trouble his wife was 
making, she would give him only a girl child! 
Inside was bedlam ! A crowd of women were shriek- 
ing and crying. Little fires had been placed in pots 
all over the veranda. Smoking censers were swinging 
at windows and doorways, to prevent the evil spirits 
from entering the house. 

"The husband came to meet me with a lantern. He 
was much distressed, and besought me in beautiful 
English to grant him help in his great calamity. This 
was his third wife. The gods were against him. He 
had no child — only three daughters! Not one word of 
anxiety or sympathy did he have for his suffering wife. 

"I saw her lying on an old cot, with a coarse bamboo 
mat and gunny bag for bedding. She was a beautiful 
young Brahman girl. The cot was on the outside 
veranda, exposed to wind and rain. The patient had 
already been partially prepared for death. She was 
covered with burns and bruises, and was very weak. 



108 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

but she looked at me with her beautiful eyes, and im- 
plored me not to treat her as cruelly as the others had 
done. It was a weird scene, with the flickering little 
lamps, the beautiful ill-treated patient, and the curious 
faces of the women peering at us out of the darkness. 

"Under great protest the relatives finally allowed the 
patient to be moved into a small veranda room. By 
and by things calmed down, and the people left for 
their homes. All was quiet, and the patient's confi- 
dence and strength revived. At dawn we left a 
smiling young mother holding her newborn son in 
her arms, and a father proud and happy, because 
now he had a child, an heir to his large estate. 

"The little green door opened to let us out. A little 
child had opened it, and never since that night 
has it been closed to us or to the Gospel message." 

The General Council conducts a mission in the City 
of Rangoon in Burma. The native catechist, who has 
been in charge of the work for three years, writes that 
he has won thirty souls for his Lord. He says 
further : 

"Though the year has been a black one. 

The Letter {^\\ of trials, temptations, accidents 

of a Native , . . i i i r i 

Worker. ^^d poisonous levers and break or work 

on account of the present war, such as 
the world has never witnessed, yet God has brought 
us through safe and given us the victory. And when 
the time shall come for the strife and toil, the tumults 
and wars, the tears and groans of creation to end for- 
ever, then shall come the jubilee, the grand coronation 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN CHINA 109 

song shall be sung by the resurrected redeemed hosts 
of the Lord, saying, 'Thou art worthy to take the 
book and to open the seals thereof; for Thou wast 
slain and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out 
of every kindred and tongue and people and nation; 
and hast made us unto our God kings and priests; 
and we shall reign on the earth/ ** 

In 1894 the Missouri Lutheran Synod began work 
in India in the Salem district of the Madras Presi- 
dency, their first station being at Krishnagiri. There 
the pioneer missionary the Rev, Th. Naether labored 
until his death in 1904. In 1907 the work was ex- 
tended to Travancore. The mission has eleven chief 
stations and fourteen missionaries. 

The women's societies of this synod are very active, 
their contribution including not only money but large 
shipments of garments for the children in the mission 
schools. The medical work of the mission, the re- 
treat for missionaries in the hills, and the school for 
missionaries' children are supported entirely by the 
women's societies. 

The Joint Synod of Ohio which had taken over be- 
fore the war the Kodur and Puttur stations of the 
Hermannsburg mission has now agreed to support the 
entire mission. 

The Lutheran Synod of Iowa sends contributions 
to the work of the Leipsic Society. 

The Danes and Norwegians in America support 
the Home Mission to the Santals. The Swedes are 



110 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

a part of the General Council and help to support 
her mission. 

We owe to the Rev. George Drach the closing words 
of our Indian story. 

* 'To-day there are no less than twelve different 
missions in various parts of India, supported and con- 
trolled by societies and boards of the Lutheran Church 
in Europe and America, numbering according to the 
census of 191 1, a native Christian constituency of 
nearly two hundred and fifty thousand. To emphasize 
their unity in faith and to consult concerning the 
best method of mission work, as well as to plan for 
closer co-operation, delegates were sent by the various 
Lutheran missions to an All-India Lutheran Con- 
ference at Rajahmundry, held December 31, 19 ii to 
January 4, 1912. This was the second conference of 
this character, the first having been held at Guntur 
four years ago. 

All told, eighty European and American and twelve 
Indian delegates came together at Rajahmundry in 
order to advance by the fostering of Christian fel- 
lowship among Lutheran brethren and by practically 
helpful deliberation, the cause of Christ in India. 
They represented the Leipsic, Missouri, Swedish and 
Danish missions of the Tamil country, the Hermanns- 
burg, Breklum, American General Council and Ameri- 
can General Synod Missions of the Telugu country, 
and the Gossner Mission of the North. The dele- 
gates came from the South of India where the breezes 
have not yet spent all the spicy fragrance of which. 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN CHINA 111 

softly blowing, they robbed Ceylon's isle; they came 
from the sun-scorched plains of Central India, where 
great rivers roll seaward in tepid sluggishness; they 
came from the far north where the vast, snowy reaches 
of the Himalayas abruptly bound the view. It was a 
joy to see them, young men still in the newness of the 
first years of missionary service, perhaps still study- 
ing the vernacular of their fields of work; men in the 
prime of life who had tested their strength upon the 
tasks God gave them to perform amid surrounding 
heathendom, and who had become wise in counsel and 
strong in achievement; older men whose whitening 
hair confirmed the story, told by their battle-worn 
faces, of decades of service against the forces of Satan, 
and who yet burned at heart with the zeal of young 
warriors. Moreover, there was not a department of 
woman's work in missions that had not its goodly com- 
plement of women present at the conference . . . Could 
any other Church, besides the Lutheran, have gathered 
together in one body such a unique, diversified yet 
united conference of Indian missionaries and Chris- 
tians? .... The conference marked an epoch in the 
work of Lutheran missions in India, which, united, 
strong and zealous, will not be content until they 
occupy advanced ground in the movement of the army 
of the Lord Jesus Christ." 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Lutheran Church in Africa 

The Land. 

The People 

Womanhood in Africa 

The Riches of Africa 

A Continent Betrayed 

The Traffic in Gin 

Mohammedanism in Africa 

Africa under European Flags 

The Picture not all Dark 

The First African Missionary a Lutheran 

The German Societies. 

{West Coast) 
Basel 
Gossner 
North German or Bremen 

{South Africa) 
Rhenish 
Berlin 

Hermannsburg 
Hanover 

{East Africa) 
John Ludwig Krapf and Johann Rebmann the Founders 
Bielefeld 
Berlin 
Leipsic 

Breklum or Schleswig-Holstein 
Neukirchen 

Germans at Work for Other Societies. 

Scandinavian Societies. 

Norwegian Missionary Society 
Norwegian Church Mission (Schreuder) 
Swedish State Church 
Swedish National Society 



Finnish Lutheran Missionary Society. 

Norwegian Missionary Society in Madagascar. 

American Societies. 
Norwegian Synod 
United Norwegian Church 
Norwegian Free Church 
General Synod 



Chapter IV. 

THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AFRICA 

The continent of Africa has been li- 
The Land. , , i* i • 

kened to a great ear which waits upon 

the word of the rest of the world. It is enormous in 
extent, its area being nearly twelve million square miles. 
If a line should be run east and west a little north 
of the Equator, the northern section would enclose 
all North America, the southern section all Europe. 
The coast line is low, and the country near the coast 
unhealthy; the interior is high, composed of vast 
table lands and mountain ranges. The Congo River, 
which is said to be thirty times the size of the Mis- 
sissippi, rushes to the sea over gigantic waterfalls and 
through deep-cut channels which are almost unfathom- 
able. Besides the Congo there are three other large 
rivers, the Niger, flowing toward the west, the Nile, 
toward the north, the Zambesi toward the east. 

It is estimated that the native pop- 
ulation of Africa numbers about 
one hundred and seventy-five millions. Among this 
vast throng there is the widest diversity of char- 
acter, religion and speech. Beside the negroes 
there are millions of Arabs, Copts, Berbers and 
Moors. One of the better tribes of negroes, the 
Kondes of Central Africa, is described by a Lutheran 



116 THE STORY OP LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

missionary. **You can hardly imagine, for Africa, 
anything more idyllic than a Konde village. First, 
well-tilled fields announce that it is near; then we of- 
ten see a widely-extended banana grove. The dwell- 
ing houses are often so neat and clean that they would 
draw attention even in Europe. The people are strong 
and of muscular build, their color is dark. You notice 
among the men many whose features speak of reflec- 
tion. They are sober and honest. There appears, 
therefore, to be such a soil for the diffusion of the 
Gospel as is seldom found.'' 

Of the worst tribes it is difficult to speak or write. 
Their degradation seems to put them below the level of 
the beasts. Indescribable practices, cannibalism and 
slavery are common. A member of the Congo medical 
service said of that section of the country; **At 
N'Gandu, we found that the chief had gathered to- 
gether about ten thousand cannibal brigands, mostly 
of the Batatela race. Through the whole of the Bat- 
atela country for some four days' march, one sees 
neither gray hairs, nor halt, no** blind. Even parents 
are eaten by their children on the first sign of ap- 
proaching decrepitude. N'Gandu is approached by 
a very handsome pavement of human skulls, the top 
being the only part showing above ground. I counted 
more than a thousand skulls in the pavement of one 
gate alone. Almost every tree forming the fortifi- 
cation was crowned with a human skull." 

Commenting upon the conditions in which many 
Africans live, a missionary says that *Vhen eleven 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AFRICA 117 

men, women and children, and seventeen goats live 
together in a hut seventeen feet square, it is difficult 
for the flowers of love and tenderness to flourish/' 

If we wait for evolution to raise these poor people, 
we will wait forever. Fortunately, here and there, 
another theory of human development has been applied 
with magical results. 

The African ^ Student of Africa and the Africans 
Woman. has seen in the shape of the conti- 

nent the figure of a woman with a huge burden on 
her back, looking toward America. If it is true that 
''the index of civilization of every nation is not their 
religion, their manner of life, their prosperity, but the 
respect paid to women'*, then we need seek no fur- 
ther for proof of the sad degradation of the Dark 
Continent. Bought and sold, rented or given away, 
living in polygamy or worse conditions, "she is the 
prey of the strong, her virtue is held of no account, 
she has no innocent childhood, motherhood is dese- 
crated, and when she wraps vileness about her as her 
habitual garment, it is encouraged." In the words of 
Doctor Dennis, ''she is regarded as a scandal and 
a slave, a drudge and a disgrace, a temptation and a 
terror, a blemish and a burden". It is far easier for 
an African to accept the Gospel for himself than to 
believe that it is intended also for women. Doctor 
Day describes the vigorous driving away of the w^omen 
from his services by the headman or *'king-whip"* who 
laid about him briskly as he cried out, "This God- 
palaver is not for women!" 



118 THE STORY OP LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

The Riches The riches of Africa are for the most 

of Africa. part surmised rather than accurately 

known. The country is fertile and crops can be cul- 
tivated with a minimum of effort. Great forests 
abound — ebony, teak, rosewood, m.ahogany and almost 
every other known kind of timber. An investigator 
with a fondness of mathematical speculation has said 
that the forests of Africa would build a boardwalk 
round the globe six inches thick and eight miles wide. 
The names of certain localities, "Diamond fields", 
"Gold Coast'^ "Ivory Coast'^ tell us of the riches to be 
found therein. The coal deposits are estimated as 
covering eight hundred thousand square miles. 
The copper fields equal those of North America 
and Europe combined; the undeveloped iron ore 
amounts to five times that of North America. 
Nor is the power for the development of these 
riches wanting. Human strength is there; the 
black who carries on his back for the many hours 
of a long march a sixty pound burden can learn to 
apply his muscles to other tasks. Water power is 
there in enormous waterfalls, and there are many nav- 
igable rivers. 

W. E. Burghardt Dubois, himself of African de- 
scent, declares that in Africa may be found not only 
the roots of the present war, but the menace of fu- 
ture wars. Of the process by which the European 
nations have gained possession of practically all the 
black man's continent he speaks with passionate in- 
dignation. "Lying treaties, rivers of rum, murder, as- 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AFRICA 119 

sassination, mutilation, rape and torture" have marked 
the progress of these nations in their campaign for 
African land. There is the spoil ^'exceeding the gold- 
haunted dreams of the most modern of imperialists" 
there is the prize for which nations will struggle in- 
definitely unless a new spirit is bred among them. 
A Continent The great missionary command, ^^Go 
Betrayed. ye into all the w^orld and preach my 

Gospel to every creature" is a sufficient direction for the 
Christian world in its relations with Africa; but re- 
inforcing it there is, or there should be, our enor- 
mous obligation to this most benighted country. Af- 
rica is the most helpless continent, the most degraded, 
and, alas, that it should be so, the most fearfully 
abused. Livingstone described it as the open sore of 
the world. Small countries have been exploited, the 
Papuans of Australia have been almost exterminated, 
the American Indian has been driven from hunting 
ground to hunting ground until all that he can call 
his own is a small donation of the vast land which was 
once his. But Africa is a whole continent which has 
been betrayed. The white man has in the main not 
sought to enlighten, to show the hideousness of sin, 
to point the better way, but upon the evil fires of 
paganism he has poured gin so that the smouldering 
ashes have leaped into destroying flame. The sla- 
very which was one of the miost horrible products of 
paganism he did not try to abolish, but himself stole 
and bought human beings ; in all one hundred million 
souls. 



120 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

The history of the African rum traffic would seem 
to take forever from England and Germany and the 
United States their boasted name of Christian. Upon 
the heart of our Doctor Day this fearful evil lay with 
a heavy weight. Said he: 

The Traffic *^Within a stone's throw of us lay a 

in Gin. large steamer laden to the water's edge 

with rum. When we remember that one of these 
steamers carries four thousand tons of freight and that 
hundreds of them are running to the country laden 
with rum, the very vilest that chemistry can invent 
and concoct, we may have some conception of what 
it means, not only to the heathen, but to missionaries 
at work there. At the mouth of every river and stream 
wherever there is a rod of beach smooth enough to 
land, the traffic goes on. In the name of God, in the 
name of all that is high and holy, why do not the 
owners of these ships, who live in luxury in Boston, 
Liverpool, Hamburg and London, paint their ships 
black and run up the black flag, or better still, nail 
it to the mast? Never pirate sailed the seas whose 
crimes were so black as the crimes now perpetrated on 
this continent in the name of commerce. 

"At Freetown, our ship had a lot of powder to 
discharge. It could not be landed at the regular 
wharf, but must be landed in a state of quarantine a 
quarter of a mile away. What a farce! There lay 
the liquor ship landing thousands of cases of rum, 
dangerous in a thousand fold greater sense than all 
the powder that ever went into the dark continent. 




GIRLS OF EMMA V. DAY SCHOOL, MUHLENBERG, AFRICA, 
CARRYING WATER AND SEWING IN GARDEN. 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AFRICA 121 

Think too of the awful caricature of ships carrying 
in their holds these untold millions of gallons of rum, 
holding on Sabbath the beautiful services of the Church 
of England! More than all this, along this coast are 
ships of war, bristling with cannon, and on these ships, 
too, are read the Sabbath service, and there is a chap- 
lain to read daily prayers. They are here to protect 
commerce, a trade that is transforming so many of 
these people into driveling idiots, gibbering maniacs, 
thieves, harlots, everything that is low and wicked, 
then launching their sinful souls into the lake that 
burns." 

To the horror of its own situation Africa is not dull. 
Like the American Indian, like every poor besotted 
wretch in his hours of sanity, the African has be- 
sought that this curse be removed. In 1883 the na- 
tives of the diamond fields implored the Cape Par- 
liament to have public houses removed at least six 
miles. The petition was refused. 
Mohammedan- ^ little over six hundred years before 
ism in Africa, the Christian era Mohammed 
preached his new religion in Arabia, urging upon those 
who followed him prayer, almsgiving, fasting and pil- 
grimage to Mecca, and allowing them slavery, con- 
cubinage, polygamy and easy divorce. With the rap- 
idity of fire in a field of dry grass the new faith 
spread, not the least productive of the methods of 
the prophet being wars of subjugation and extermina- 
tion. 



122 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

The Mohammedans soon conquered North Africa 
sweeping away the early Christianity, and then crossed 
into Spain from which they were finally driven. For 
a long time the great desert served as an impenetrable 
barrier to further advance in Africa, but presently they 
crossed the desert, and when Christian missionaries 
arrived on the west coast, they found that Islam had 
preceded them. Forbidding none of the old practices 
of heathendom, imposing only a few new rules which 
are easily followed, the Mohammedan faith has had an 
enormous following. Between the Crescent and the 
Cross West Africa must make her choice and upon the 
Christian Church depends the decision. 

In meeting Islam and its active missionaries the 
Christian cannot but be sadly aware that the evil of 
drink was and is condemned by the prophet and hir. 
followers and that to a true Mohammedan all forms 
of alcohol are taboo, a fact with which the Moham- 
medan has not failed to taunt his rival. 

Dr. Zwemer and Dr. Westerman estimate the total 
population of the Moslem world to be two hundred 
million of whom forty two million are in Africa. To 
them as well as to the pagan should the Gospel message 

go. 

A missionary book or a missionary address to which 

I am not able to give credit describes the parting of 
an English trader from the African woman with whom 
he had lived during a long residence in Africa, who 
had served him and truly loved him. Having accu- 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AFRICA 123 

mulated riches, he was about to return to England 

without even bidding her farewell, but she had heard 

of his departure and followed him to the shore, where 

throwing herself at his feet, she besought him not to 

cast her aside. Indifferent to her grief, annoyed by 

her importunity, he angrily thrust her from him and 

embarked. Such have been the dealings of the white 

race with Africa. 

. ^ . ,^ ^ Except for a few almost negligible sec- 

Afnca Under ^ ^ . . ^ ^ 

European tions the continent is under European 

^^^^^* flags. France owns a colony twenty 

times the size of France itself; Great Britain a col- 
ony as large as the United States, which extends al- 
most without interruption from the coast to Cairo, a 
distance of six thousand miles; Germany, a colony 
one and one half times as large as the German Em- 
pire in Europe; Belgium, a territory equal to that of 
Germany; and Portugal, Spain and Italy a twelfth of 
the continent between them. 

But the picture is not all dark. The 
N^t AH ^a^rk "^^^tion of Africa recalls to our minds 

the names of Livingstone, of Robert 
Moffatt, of David A. Day. The Christian world has 
in Africa its records of shame, it has also its records 
of glory. It has at Kimberly the deep shafts of dia- 
mond mines, symbol of the pride and lust of man's 
heart; it has nearby the graves of many pious Ger- 
man Lutherans. Lingering along the western shore 
there must be still the cries of the afflicted, the 



124 THE STORY OP LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

wailing of mothers torn from their children, of 
husbands beaten from their wives! Yet here are 
the graves of the children of David A. Day. Into 
the distant interior penetrated the slave raiders, 
torturing, driving the inhabitants from their villages, 
binding them with chains, marking their course with 
blood; yet here is buried the heart of Livingstone,, 
Whether or not we heed the call, we are bound to 
Africa by an unbreakable bond. 

It is a satisfaction and an inspiration 
African ^^ know in the searching of heart which 

Missionary should be ours that our own church 

has heeded the Ethiopian call. If it 
is true that "when the history of the great African 
States of the future comes to be written, the arrival 
of the first missionary will be the first historical event'*, 
then will the Lutheran Church have its Peter Heil- 
ing (Chapter I) to record as the first of the Protes- 
tants to concern himself directly with the spiritual 
welfare of the Africans. Would that there were no 
such gap as that which exists between his going to 
Abyssinia in 1634 ^^d that of the next Lutheran 
missionaries ! 

For purposes of Lutheran missionary study, we shall 
divide Africa into three sections : first, the West Coast ; 
secondly, South Africa; thirdly. East Africa. As 
in the case of India we shall consider first the work 
of the German, then the work of the Scandinavian, 
then the work of the American Lutherans. 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AFRICA 125 

THE GERMAN SOCIETIES 
The West Coast. 

The Spirit To the eastern side of the so-called 

of Faith. Gold Coast went in 1828 the Basel 

Society to begin a costly work. **Sober and patient" 
— thus Doctor Warneck describes them. Opposed to 
them were superstition, dense ignorance, a fearful cli- 
mate, to say nothing of all the difficulties produced by 
colonial politics. 

Between 1828 and 1842 the society sent to the West 
Coast of Africa seventeen ministers, ten of v/hom 
died within one year, two others in three years, and 
three returned to their native country confirmed inva- 
lids. Yet steadily they pressed from the coast into 
the still darker interior, working among the Ga, Chi 
and Ashanti negroes. In Africa there are few native 
tribes which have a written language, hence the first 
work of the substantial missionary is to create one. 
Wars among the natives and wars among the great na- 
tions disturbed the mission, but the work went on in 
spite of all obstacles. After thirty years of labor three 
hundred and sixty-seven Christians were counted, after 
sixty years eighteen thousand. Station after station 
has been founded, school after school established. A 
theological seminary trains the natives to preach, the 
famous Basel industrial enterprises train their hands 
and eyes, and medical missionaries heal their bodies 
and show them how to live in cleanliness and decency. 



126 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

Among the most devoted heroes of this 
"The Door- . . . , „.. ^ i 

Keeper of mission, was Andrew Ktis, a Lutheran. 

the Gold At one time when three or four mis- 

sionaries had died and persecution had 
dimmed somewhat the lamp of faith, he was advised 
to return to Europe. But he would listen to no such 
advice. Sending back the message, "I will remain'', 
he went farther into the interior. Presently there ar- 
rived two other missionaries and with them the young 
woman to whom Riis was engaged. When the two 
newly arrived missionaries died, Riis was left once 
more, the only "door-keeper" on the Gold Coast. Now 
he sailed for Europe, not to give up the mission but 
to rouse the home churches to its support. Successful 
in this effort, he returned to the field and the mission 
began anew, now quickly to become prosperous. 

The changed conditions in this dark land are de- 
scribed in a German missionary journal. 
A City *^I^ June, 1869, the missionary Ram- 

Transformed, seyer, of the Basel Missionary Society, 
was dragged as a prisoner into Abetifi, then a city of 
Ashantee, with his wife and child. They spent three 
days in a miserable hut, with their feet in chains. 
Human sacrifices were then common in Abetifi, which 
was under the tyrannical rule of the Ashantee chief- 
tains. To-day, in the same streets, under the same 
shady trees, instead of the bloody executioner going 
his rounds, a Christian congregation gathers together 
every Sunday. Christian hymns, such as, "Who will 
be Christ's Soldier?" ring joyfully through the streets. 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AFRICA 127 

The people come out of their houses, the chieftain is in- 
vited; he comes with his suite and listens to the joyful 
tidings of salvation. And it is not vain; many have 
become the disciples of Jesus. Many even dare to tell 
their fellow-countrymen in the streets what joy and 
peace they have found in Him." 

In 1896 the Basel mission opened its eleventh sta- 
tion at Kumassi. It has twenty-four thousand thrcvj 
hundred church members with a school roll of nearly 
eight thousand pupils. There are thirty-six mission- 
aries and forty-three other Europeans who direct the 
industrial and commercial work. The mission extends 
from Ashanti beyond the Volta River. 

The Basel mission has also a flourish- 
The Beauty of . 1 • .u r^ i c 

Nature and the ^^S work in the Cjcrman colony or 

Depredation Kamerun, among the Bantu negroes. 
The beauty of the land in which they 
work and the human misery are described by one of 
the missionaries. '^It is a beautiful wild country which 
often reminds us of Switzerland; on all sides we see 
chains of mountains separated by deep valleys, roaring 
torrents, foaming water falls, and forests of palm 
trees reaching to the highest summits. How many 
times our hearts have leaped for joy at the glory of 
the scene! And, on the other hand, what a sorrow 
it is to see humanity fallen so low! The inhabitants 
of this paradise live in a real hell, always in unspeak- 
able dread of evil spirits and of death. The dying 
often quit this world with cries of terror. The differ- 
ent tribes fight constantly with one another. Their 



128 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

moral condition is incredible. There are actually cer- 
tain localities which exchange their dead in order to 
devour them." 

How vividly this description brings to our minds 
a danger not often considered at home, the fearful 
effect which constant sight of the most hideous im- 
morality upon the missionary who is himself but a man. 
God be thanked that they hold fast to all that is pure, 
thinking, in the midst of monstrous crimes, of those 
things which are lovely! 

The Basel Society has here thirteen main stations 
which extend nearly a hundred miles into the interior. 
Here there are sixty-three European missionaries. The 
Christian community numbers twelve thousand. 

The Gossner Mission, whose chief work is in India, 
resolved in 19 14 to send missionaries to Central Ka- 
merun. Just before the outbreak of the war four 
missionaries were sent out to make preliminary studies. 

On the Slave Coast the North German or Bremen 
Society has had a mission since 1847. This society 
has no mission school of its own, but draws its workers 
from the mission school at Basel. Its African mission 
has been continued only at enormous sacrifice. In 
fifty years sixty-five men and women died. The cli- 
mate is dangerous, the hearts of the natives are stub- 
born. The territory in which the mission is situated 
is partly German and partly English, a fact which 
causes not only political but linguistic complications 
since German must be the language of one section, 
English of the other. 





CENTRAL CHINA LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, SHE- 
KOW, HUPEH, CHINA. 



CHAPEL AND MISSION HOMES, CHIKUNGSHAN, CHINA. 
(UNITED NORWEGIAN) 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AFRICA 129 

Nevertheless, the Bremen missionaries have per- 
sisted. To-da3^ they have nine stations Vv^ith a staff of 
twenty-eight, and over ten thousand native Christians. 
A thorough study has been made of the language, 
customs and religion of the people, who belong to the 
Evhe tribe. 

Assisting in the work of the Bremen Society are 
deaconesses. The lives of these godly women have had 
a marvelous effect especially upon the native women. 

South Africa. 



A Land of 
Many Nations. 



By South Africa we mean the great 
southern portion of the continent ex- 
tending from Cape Town up to the 
Zambesi River, which flows toward the east and the 
Congo v/hich flows toward the west. Here, in ad- 
dition to the native tribes who are chiefly Hottentots, 
Bushmen and Bantus, KafBrs and Zulus, are large 
settlements of whites, who, unable to go beyond this 
section on account of the climate, are more and more 
steadily making the country their own. Their pres- 
ence, as may easily be imagined, complicates and makes 
immensely difficult all mission work. To this fertile 
land, rich in gold, diamonds and other minerals, have 
gone naturally the adventurous and in many cases the 
wicked of other nations. There have been already 
fearful struggles between native and foreigner, black 
and white. When we realize that among the five 
hundred and seventy-five thousand baptized native 
Christians, one hundred and twenty thousand are Lu- 



180 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

therans, our interest In the sadly complicated situa- 
tion becomes keen. 

The first German society to work in 
P?e^ssl^'^''°''^''^ South Africa was the Rhenish which, 

like the Basel Society, is not wholly 
Lutheran. This society in 1829 established stations 
first in Na ma L and, then in Herero Land, then in 
Ovambo Land. Here Vv^e have another record of op- 
position, t)f native wars, of indifference. The mission 
station lies almost entirely in the German colony. It 
has in all fifty-two missionaries. The number of 
Christians is now more than twenty-six thousand. 
Here also, the Germans have translated and taught 
with the greatest care. The press is constantly used to 
bind together the scattered Christians in the sparsely 
settled districts, two monthly religious papers, one 
in the Nama, the other in the Herero language, being 
published. 

A Labor Says Doctor Warneck: "It has been a 

Not in Vain. laborious work of patience that the 
missionaries have done in these great countries, in- 
dustrially so poor, — a w^ork made difficult by the great 
inconstancy of the Hottentots and the strong opposition 
of the Herero, as well as by the entanglements of war, 
— and more than once in Herero Land the workers 
were on a point of withdrawing. But German fidelity 
at last carried the day. Now the whole of the great 
region from the Orange River to beyond Walfisch Bay, 
far into the interior of Great Nama Land and Herero 
Land and even up to Ovambo Land is covered with a 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AFRICA 131 

network of stations. All the points that could be oc- 
cupied have been made mission stations and the whole 
population has been brought under the educative and 
civilizing influence of Christianity.'* 

The Rhenish Society has also a mission in the 
southern part of Cape Colony. Its first station was 
at Stellenbosch, near Cape Town, established in 1829. 

The society has now in all a membership of twenty- 
one thousand four hundred Christians. A number of 
its churches are financially independent. Here as 
everywhere there are discouraging backslidings into 
the old sins of drunkenness and impurity, but even 
so the light has shone and will shine with increasing 
brightness. 

The Discovery ^^^e Berlin Missionary Society began 
of Diamonds, work in South Africa in 1834, fii*st 
among the Koranna people between the Orange and 
Vaal Rivers, and later, in 1838, in Cape Colony itself, 
its first station being at Peniel. At first few foreigners 
penetrated into this district between the Orange and 
the Vaal, but in 1870 when diamonds were discovered, 
Cape Colon}^, in spite of the protests of the Orange 
Free State to which it had belonged, annexed it. At 
once thousands of adventurers poured in, both black 
and white. In i860 the missionaries went north into 
the Transvaal. 

The Berlin Mission is the largest in South Africa. 
Its last report names fifty-eight stations and one 
thousand sub-stations. The Christian community, 
which numbers sixty thousand is organized in five 



132 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

synods of Cape Colony, the Zulu-Xosa district, Orange 
River Colony, South Transvaal and North Transvaal. 

Among the notable Lutheran missionaries of the 
Berlin South African mission have been Merenskyj a 
famous w^riter upon missionary subjects, Griltzer, who 
gave forty-nine years of devoted service to the mis- 
sion, WuraSj who gave fifty and Doctor D. Kropf who 
did valuable work as a translator. 

Another Berlin missionary of large achievement de- 
scribes his early experience, writing in 1889: 

"After having worked myself weary through the 
week, when on Sunday I saw these wild men of the 
wilderness sitting before me, absolute obtuseness to- 
ward everything divine, together with mockery and 
brutal lusts written on their faces, I sometimes lost all 
disposition to preach. Those fluent young preachers 
who not only like to be heard, but to hear themselves, 
ought to be sometimes required to ascend the pulpit 
before such an assemblage. There is not the least 
thing there to lift up the preacher of the Divine Word 
or to come to the help of his weakness. As when a 
green, fresh branch laid before the door of a glowing 
oven shrivels up at once, such has sometimes been my 
experience when I had come full of warm devotion, 
before the Kaffirs, and undertaken to preach. I have 
sometimes wished that I had never become a mission- 
ary. Once the hour of Sunday services again ap- 
proached. The sun was fearfully hot, and I felt weary 
in body and soul. My unbelieving heart said: *Your 
preaching is for nothing', and Beelzebub added a lusty 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AFRICA 133 

amen. The Kaffirs were sitting in the hut waiting 

for me. 'I'll not preach to-day\ said I to my wife, 

but she looked at me with her angelic eyes, lifted her 

finger, and said gravely: 'William, you will do your 

duty. You will go and preach'. I seized Bible and 

hymn-book, and loitered to church like an idle boy 

creeping unwillingly to school. I began, preluding 

on the violin, the Kaffirs grunting. I prayed, read 

my text, and began to preach with about as much 

fluency as stuttering Moses. Yet soon the Lord 

loosened the band of my tongue, and the fire of the 

Holy Ghost awakened me out of my sluggishness. I 

spoke with such fervor concerning the Lamb of God, 

that taketh away the sin of the world, that if that 

sermon has quickened no heart of a hearer yet my own 

was profoundly moved." 

The writer, Missionary Posselt, lived to baptize 

one thousand Kaffirs. 

One of the interesting developments in 

of Tropical ^^^ Berlin Society mission has been the 

Medical great decrease in sickness, owing to the 

Treatment. . , . ,. - 

progress or tropical medical treatment. 

No employee of the society, whether missionary, wife 
of missionary or artisan, is sent to Africa without a 
thorough course in tropical hygiene. To those faith- 
ful scientists who discovered the cause of malaria is 
ascribed the success of the Panama canal; no less are 
they to be thanked for the continued life and work of 
many missionaries. 



134 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

The Herrnannsburg Mission entered South Africa 
in 1854. Its field IS located among the Zulus in Natal 
where there are twenty-one stations and twelve thous- 
and eight hundred Christians, and among the 
Bechunas in the Transvaal where there are twentj- 
eight stations and sixty-one thousand Christians. 
The Ship We have learned in Chapter II of the 

*'Candace". origin of the Hermannsburg Mission 

in the mind and heart of Louis Harms. After a year 
or two, a number of German sailors, recently con- 
verted, sought admission to the training school, and 
at their suggestion a ship was built and named the 
'Candace.' This ship was to carry the Gospel to 
South Africa, and on October 8, 1853, she sailed 
from Hamburg. On board were sailors, colonists and 
missionaries who were to found a missionary colony. 
To each separate class Pastor Harms gave separate 
directions, but upon all he urged the necessity for 
prayer. "Begin all your work with prayer; when the 
storm rises, pray, when the billows rage round the 
ship, pray; when sin comes, pray; and when the devil 
tempts you, pra)^ So long as you pray it will go well 
with you, body and soul." 

The missionary colony hoped to settle among the 
Galla tribes, but were driven away by the Mohamme- 
dans, therefore they returned to Natal. On the 19th 
of September, 1854, they established their first station 
near Greytown, giving it the dear name of Hermanns- 
burg. Each artisan began to practice his trade, a house 
was built, and before three months had passed 
the first converts of the Zulu church were baptized. 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AFRICA 135 

A Truly Lu- -^^ Lutheran mission has so intense a 
theran Mission, Lutheran spirit as the Hermannsburg 
mission, whose founder wished all the Lutheran 
symbols and especially the beautiful Lutheran liturgy 
to be recognized and used by mission churches as well 
as by churches in the fatherland. 

The good ship ^^Candace/' one of the most famous 
and probably the first of the missionary ships of the 
world, made many journeys. Not the least interesting, 
at least to those concerned. Was her second when she 
carried to Natal reinforcements and additional colon- 
ists, among them a wife for each of the missionaries 
who had made the pioneer journey. 

The Hermannsburg mission has not lacked a bap- 
tism of blood. In 1883 thirteen stations were de- 
stroyed and Missionary Schroeder met a martyr's 
death. 

The Hanover Free Evangelical Lutheran Church 
Missionary Society^ branched off from the Hermanns- 
burg Mission in 1892. It has six stations in Natal 
and Zululand with about twenty-two thousand Chris- 
tians, and among the Bechunas in the Transvaal three 
stations with thirty-six hundred Christians. 

East Africa. 

German The colonial expansion of Germany in 

East Africa. the eighties stimulated missionary in- 
terest and activity in its newly acquired possessions in 
East Africa, where is situated the largest and most 
thickly populated of the German Colonies, with about 



136 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

seven and a half million inhabitants. The mission field 
is a difficult one, the natives belonging to one of the 
lowest human groups. Hard of heart, slow to give up 
their heathen customs, especially that of polygamy, 
affected in some sections by Islam, they are difficult to 
impress and reluctant to be won. Yet among them a 
harvest has been reaped. 

The East African mission field is inseparably con- 
nected with the name of a Lutheran, John Ludwig 
Krapfj who in the employ of an English missionary 
society founded Christian missions in this section. 
A Call to *Krapf was born in 1810 near Tiibin- 

Service. gen in Germany. A fondness for geo- 

graphy coupled with the reading of a pamphlet describ- 
ing the spread of missions among the heathen impelled 
him when he was a mere boy to prepare himself for 
missionary work. After studying at Basel, he became 
pastor of a congregation, but he could not shut out 
from his heart the needs of unchristianized lands. "In 
the needs of my congregation I recognized those of 
non-Christian lands in a measure that affected me very 
deeply; in their sorrow I recognized the wretchedness 
of the heathen. The grace which I myself enjoj^ed 
and which I commended to my own people, was, I felt, 
for the heathen as well, but there might be no one 
to proclaim it to them. Here, everyone without dif- 
ficulty may find the way of life; in those lands there 
may be no one to show the way." 



*The account of John Ludwig Krapf is taken largely 
from the Rev. F. Wilkinson, Missionary Review of the 
World, November, 1892. 




ADMINISTRATION BUILDING AND CLASS ROOMS, KYUSHU 
GAKUIN, KUMAMOTO, JAPAN. 

PASTOR'S RESIDENCE, CHAPEL, AND STUDENT DORMITORY, 

TOKYO. AMERICAN MISSIONARIES, NATIVE PASTORS 

AND WORKERS WITH WIVES AND CHILDREN. 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AFRICA 137 

A Slave Following his inclination, he offered 

Market. himself for missionary work and was 

sent by the Church Missionary Society of England, 
which used Basel missionaries in the work, to its Abys- 
sinian Mission. Leaving England in 1837, h^ reached 
Alexandria and started up the Nile. At Cairo he 
had his first glimpse of Africa's great curse, the traf- 
fic in human beings. He visited the slave markets and 
there saw the wretched creatures men, women and chil- 
dren, lying fainting under the burning sun, to be 
examined like cattle by purchasers. Like Abraham 
Lincoln on his journey down the Mississippi, Krapf 
vowed eternal hatred for the hideous institution of 
human slavery. 

The First Journeying to Adoa in the highlands 

Repulse. of Abyssinia, Krapf joined other mis- 

sionaries trained at Basel and employed by the Church 
Missionary Society, Blumhardt and Isenberg by name, 
but they were soon driven away by the ruling prince. 
Thus repulsed, Krapf determined to go to Shoa in the 
south of Abyssinia, and, accompanied by Isenberg, he 
arrived there after a severe illness in June, 1859. There, 
when Isenberg had returned to Egypt, Krapf worked 
for several years alone. 

In 1842, he left Shoa to meet his fu- 
Once More the ^jf j^^ ;^^ Dietrich, in Egypt 

Door Closed. ' > sji- 

and to help on their way two new 

brethren who had arrived on the coast. Travelling 
on foot, ill, fatigued and several times set upon by 
robbers, he reached the coast where he expected to 



138 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

find the two missionaries, only to learn that they 
had been there and had gone back to Egypt. When 
he with his bride returned to Shoa they found that 
its ruler, like the ruler of Adoa, had closed the kingdom 
against him. 

The First The need of the Gallas, a nation 

Sacrifice. to the south to whom no Gospel mes- 

senger had been sent, had lain heavily upon the heart 
of Krapf and now, driven from Shoa, he tried to reach 
them, but found it impossible. Thereupon he deter- 
mined to do what he could by circulating the Scrip- 
tures. Joining himself to a caravan, he started for 
the interior, with him his young wife, whose new- 
born baby was in the course of a few weeks buried 
in the desert. 

,,^ ^ ^ Alas, even this long journey and these 

"Cast Down , ^ ^ . 

But Not trials were in vain, for once more was 
Destroyed." ^^^^^ forbidden to proceed with his 
Vv^ork. The brave man, disheartened, but not com- 
pletely cast down, wrote home: ^^Abyssinia will not 
soon again enjoy the time of grace she has so shame- 
fully slighted It is a consolation to us and to 

dear friends of the mission to know that over eight 
thousand copies of the Scriptures have found their 
way into Abyssinia. These will not all be lost or 
remain v/ithout a blessing. Faith speaks thus : Though 
every mission should disappear in a day and leave no 
trace behind, I would still cleave to mission work with 
all my prayers, my labors, my gifts, with my body 
and soul; for there is the command of the Lord Jesu> 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AFRICA 139 

Christ, and where that is there is also His promise 
and His final victory." 

A Ch * f Krapf now determined to attempt to 

Grave in gain a footing on the coast, in order 

East Africa. f^.^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^ ^^it Gallas, whose 

language he had learned. With this object in view, 
he sailed, with his wife, in an Arab vessel from Aden 
in November, 1843. Strong headwinds and a heavy 
sea compelled them to return to Aden. In spite of 
their exertions, the water gained upon them in their 
leaky boat, and on reaching the entrance to the har- 
bor the land wind drove back the vessel toward the 
open ocean. Half an hour after they were taken from 
the vessel it sank. Eight days later Krapf sailed again, 
and after four or five weeks' journey arrived at Mom- 
basa. Scarcely, however, had he begun to work at 
Mombasa when he was called to pass through another 
sorrow, in the loss of his wife. In prospect of death 
she prayed for relatives, for the mission, for East 
Africa, and for the Sultan, that God w^ould incline his 
heart to promote the eternal welfare of his subjects. 
The next day she appeared much better, but the day 
following much worse, while her husband himself was 
so weakened by fever as to be obliged to leave the 
care of her almost entirely to others. The next day 
she breathed her last, and on the following morning — 
Sunday — they buried her, according to her wish, on 
the mainland in the territory of the Wanika, her new- 
born daughter by her side. Krapf, even amid all 



140 THE STORY OP LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

these trials, wrote in a letter to the secretary of the 
missionary society: *^Tell the committee that in East 
Africa there is the lonely grave of one member of the 
mission connected with your society. This is an indi- 
cation that you have begun the conflict in this part of 
the world; and since the conquests of the Church are 
won over the graves of many of its members, you may 
be all the more assured that the time has come v/hen 
you are called to work for the conversion of Africa. 
Think not of the victims who in this glorious war- 
fare may suffer or fall; only press forward until East 
and West Africa are united in Christ." 

In 1846 he had the joy of welcoming 
a fellow laborer, a Lutheran, Jokann 
Rebmann. The two men were exactly opposite in na- 
ture. Krapf, restless and energetic, entertained far- 
reaching plans, and even saw in imagination a chain 
of missions stretching from Mombasa to the Niger, 
and thus connecting east and west Africa; Rebmann, 
on the contrary, believed in settling in one place and 
staying there. Nevertheless, the two men worked in 
harmony. When they finished the building of a house 
in a village not far from the sea-coast, Krapf felt that 
the first step toward the dark interior had been taken. 
After twelve years of labor, Krapf visited Europe. 
When he returned to Africa he took with him tw^o 
missionaries and three mechanics, an undertaking which 
was not altogether happy. But in the midst of dis- 
couragement he took heart. 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AFRICA 141 

Still ^'And now let me look backward and 

Undismayed. forward. In the past what do I see? 
Scarcely more than the remnant of a defeated army. 
You know I had the task of strengthening the East 
African Mission with three missionaries and three 
handicraftsmen; but where are the missionaries? One 
remained in London, as he did not consider himself 
appointed to East Africa; the second remained at 
Aden, in doubt about the English Church; the third 
died on May tenth of nervous fever. As to the three 
mechanics, they are ill of fever, lying between life and 
death, and instead of being a help look to us for help 
and attention; and yet I stand by my assertion that 
Africa must be conquered by missionaries; there must 
be a chain of mission stations between the east and 
west, though thousands of the combatants fall upon 
the left hand and ten thousand on the right . . . From 
the sanctuary of God a voice says to me. Tear not; 
life comes through death, resurrection through decay, 
the establishment of Christ's kingdom through the 
discomfiture of human undertakings. Instead of al- 
lowing yourself to be discouraged at the defeat of 
your force, go to work yourself. Do not rely on 
human help, but on the living God, to whom it is all 
the same to serve by little or by much. . . . Believe, 
love, fight, be not weary for His name's sake, and you 
will see the glory of God.' '' 

Twice Krapf tried to penetrate into the distant 
interior but was both times compelled to return with- 
out establishing missions. In 1853 ^^ returned to 



142 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

Europe on account of ill health, but the next year 
set out to Africa once more, only to be compelled on 
account of weakness to give up the journey. 

Once more, however, he visited the country of his 
love. Wishing to open a mission in East Africa 
the Methodist Free Churches requested him to ac- 
company their missionaries and to assist them in estab- 
lishing the mission. He agreed to go and said of the 
new station: *^The station Ribe will in due time cele- 
brate the triumph of the mission in the conversion of 
the Wanika, though I may be in the grave. The Lord 
does not allow His Word to return unto Him void.^' 

Returning to Europe, Krapf continued 
T 'f E%^ d ^^ work and to pray for missions until, 

in November, 1881, he was found 
dead, kneeling in the attitude of prayer. 

The names of Krapf and Rebmann are 

The Missionary associated not only in heroic mission- 
as Jixplorer. ^ •' 

ary labors but in important linguistic 

v/ork and most valuable geographic discoveries. When 

they declared that there existed in the center of Africa 

snow-capped mountains and an inland sea, they were 

laughed at, but as a result exploring expeditions were 

sent out to discover that what the missionaries claimed 

was true. The American poet Bayard Taylor, struck 

by the marvelous variety of temperature and verdure 

upon Mt. Kilimanjaro, whose base was surrounded by 

tropical forests and whose summit was wrapped in 

snow, celebrated it in verse. 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AFRICA 143 

''Hail to thee, monarch of African mountains, 
Remote, inaccessible, silent and lone — 
Who, from the heart of the tropical fervors, 
Liftest to heaven thine alien snows. 
Feeding forever the fountains that make thee 
Father of Nile and creator of Egypt! 
I see thee supreme in the mJdsl: of thy co-mates, 
Standing alone 'twixt the earth and the heavens, 
Heir of the sunset and herald of morn. 
Zone above zone, to thy shoulders of granite, 
The climates of earth are displayed as an index, 
Giving the scope of the book of creation. 
There in the wandering airs of the tropics 
Shivers the aspen, still dreaming of cold: 
There stretches the oak, from the loftiest ledges, 
His arms to the far-away lands of his brothers, 
And the pine looks down on his rival, the palm." 
David This section of Africa cannot be passed 

Livingstone. without a mention of that other hero, 
David Livingstone, the missionary, scientist, and ex- 
plorer, w^ho said, "I am tired of discovery if no fruit 
follows it", and "The end of geographical achievement 
is only the beginning of missionary undertaking", who 
was a king among men and who considered it his only 
glory that he was a "poor, poor imitation of Christ." 

There is a very particular reason for including a 
mention of Livingstone in a history of Lutheran mis- 
sions, because his impulse to become a missionary was 
directly inspired by a Lutheran, Karl Frederick Giitz- 
laff, whom w^e shall study in Chapter V. Livingstone 



144 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

was interested in missions and had resolved '*that he 
would give to the cause of missions all that he might 
earn beyond what was required for his subsistence." 
When he read Giitzlaff's appeal on behalf of China 
he determined to give himself. For various reasons 
Africa rather than China was determined upon for 
the scene of his labor. 

The first German movement toward a missionary 
possession of the German colonies in Africa was in 
Bavaria where a group of men Vv-ho had been influenced 
by Krapf, planned a Wakamba mission. Their society 
is generally known by the name of their headquarters, 
Bielefeld. One of the leading spirits and a director 
of this society was Bodelschwingh, the famous leader 
of Germany's Inner Mission movement. Bodel- 
schwingh, like Francke, was an illustration of the 
fact that they who do mission work at home do also 
mission work abroad. 

The principal field of the Bielefeld Society is Tanga 
and the country lying behind it. In 1907 it began a 
new mission in the northwest corner of German East 
Africa, a densely populated district between Lakes 
Victoria Nyanza, Kivu and Tanganyika. In its 
two fields the mission has thirty-five missionaries and 
about tvro thousand Christians. 

Careful and Tht careful and painstaking methods 
Painstaking. of the German missionaries are indi- 
cated in a description of the winning of their first 
converts in their newer field. Three ^'ears after they 
had begun to work, a j^outh appeared for baptism. 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AFRICA 145 

He was followed by six other young men. Then a 
number of girls asked for instruction and presently 
a leprous woman whose interest had been gained by 
the tender care of the missionaries. For more than 
a year these inquirers received instruction. At the end 
of that time four young men and three young women 
were considered worthy of baptism. 

The Berlin Society began work in 1891 in the ex- 
treme southwest corner of the German possessions. 
Gradually extending, it has now fifty-seven mission- 
aries and about four thousand native Christians. The 
mission field lies among the Konde tribes at the 
northern end of Lake Nyassa. 

The Leipsic Society had begun its work before the 
possession of this section by Germany. The people 
among whom it labors belong to the Chaga tribes at 
the foot of snow-capped Mt. Kilimanjaro. Its sta- 
tions extend also southward and westward. It has 
in all twenty-eight missionaries and about twenty- 
seven hundred Christians. 

The Breklum Society began work in 191 1 in the 
Uhha country on the western shore of Lake Tan- 
gan^^ika where it has three missionaries. 

The Neukirchen Society has a mission in German 
territory in Urundi between Lake Tanganyika and 
Lake Kivu with five missionaries, and also in British 
territory near the mouth of the Pomo River, where 
there are nine missionaries. 

In Africa as well as in India there is a long list 
of faithful Germans who worked in the missions of 



146 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

Other churches. Among them Nylander went as a 
missionary of the English Church Missionary Society 
to Sierra Leone in 1806. Until his death in 1825 he 
remained at his post, never returning home for a 
furlough. Doctor Schon reduced the Hausa language 
to order and wrote for it grammars, dictionaries 
and reading lessons. Upon him the French In- 
stitute conferred a gold medal for his brilliant 
philological work. Livingstone declared that Schon's 
name would live long after his own had been for- 
gotten. Sigismund Kblle compiled the Polyglotta 
Africandj a comparison of a hundred African dialects. 
He was first a missionary in Sierra Leone and after- 
wards in Egypt, Constantinople and Palestine. 

Another German Lutheran who has 

A ut eran \^^tn employed by other societies was 

in Jerusalem. t^ j j 

Samuel Gobat, who was born in Berne, 
Switzerland, in 1799. When he was nineteen years 
old he entered the Basel Missionary Institute. After 
he had thoroughly prepared himself there and in Paris 
in the Arabic, Ethiopic and Amharic languages, he 
offered himself to the Church missionary Society of 
England and was sent to begin in 1826 a mission in 
Abyssinia. Before he sailed for his mission field he 
received Lutheran ordination. For three years he 
traveled extensively in proclaiming the Gospel both 
to the priests who ministered to the sadly degenerate 
Abyssinian Church and to the people, then he was com- 
pelled to leave on account of ill health. He continued 
his missionary activity by superintending the trans- 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AFRICA 147 

lating of the Bible into Arabic at the Church Mission 
in Malta; in 1845 he was made Vice President of the 
Protestant College at Malta. Subsequently he was 
appointed Bishop of Jerusalem, his election to this im- 
portant position being preceded by his entrance into 
the English Church. He died in Jerusalem in 1879, 
"notable for his piety, vigor, tact and good judgment." 

Scandinavian Societies. 

In 1844 ^^^ Norwegian Missionary Society sent 
Hans Schreuder as a missionary to Zululand. Here 
at Umpumulo he and thirty companions started a 
mission. After twenty-five years' constant and faith- 
ful work, the number of Christians was two hundred 
and forty-five. Today there are five thousand seven 
hundred church members divided among thirteen 
stations. The training school carries its students 
carefully through a nine months' course in the Gospels, 
the Catechism and Church history, besides providing 
exercise in preaching and instruction concerning the 
care of souls. The pupils go out two by two on 
Sundays to preach in heathen kraals. Their in- 
structor says of them, "For diligence, attention and 
Christian walk, I can give them the highest praise. 
It has been a delight to work among them, for they 
seem to grasp more and more the central teaching 
of Christianity." 

In 1873 Hans Schreuder, the pioneer, left the ser- 
vice of the society to establish the Norwegian Church 
Mission, which now has four stations and two thousand 



148 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

Christians. Schreuder was the father of Norwegian 

missions. His appeal, '*A Few Words to the Church 

of Norway," in 1842, aroused the country to a sense of 

its missionary obligation. 

The Swedish State Church established 
Co-operation. . ^ ^ . . . o 1 a r • 

in 1070 a mission in bouth Africa 

among the Zulus, selecting this spot because of its 
nearness to the Norwegian mission from which the 
Swedes expected advice and co-operation. In this ex- 
pectation they were not disappointed. In sympathy and 
collaboration with them are also the neighboring Ber- 
lin missionaries. A common hymn book, prayer book 
and catechism are used. The native pastors of the 
three missions are trained by the Swedes, the teachers 
by the Norwegian and the evangelists by the Germans. 

Oscarberg is the oldest station. The Zulu war and 
the Boer war both caused great loss and suffering to 
the mission. The work was extended in 1902 to 
South Rhodesia. In all its stations the mission has 
about six thousand native Christians. 

In Abyssinia and extending into British East Africa 
is the mission of the Swedish National Society. To 
this field the society was directed by Louis Harm.s in 
1865. Its people, whom the missionary-explorer Krapf 
longed to reach, are Gallas, a vigorous and superior 
African race, one of the few who have not been in- 
fluenced by Mohammedanism. Like Krapf, the Swedes 
hoped to have access to these people through the 
Abyssinian Church. To their hopes was put a cruel 
period by the murder of one of their missionaries. In 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AFRICA 149 

1 88 1 a second effort was made to reach them. Prince 
Menelik of Shoa promised free passage and also 
Negus of Abyssinia, but both broke their word. 
Finally slaves who were carried from the Galla coun- 
try were trained by the persistent missionaries and sent 
back. Among them, Onesimus Nesib, who was bap- 
tized in 1872, has translated the whole Bible into the 
Galla language and has written various Christian 
books and a large dictionary. 

The Eritrea station of the Swedish National Society 
is in the Italian colony of that name on the Red Sea. 
Here the missionary press, printing in seven languages, 
is busily at work. To the natives of these parts the 
missionaries have given their first written language. 
Boarding schools, day schools and a hospital are among 
the mission enterprises. 

A German missionary who visited Finland in 1867 
roused among the Lutherans there an interest in Africa. 
As a result the Finnish Lutheran Missionary Society 
established a mission among the Ovambo people, near 
the great mission of the Rhenish Society. For 
thirteen years their missionaries labored without a 
single convert. Then the rulers ceased to oppose mis- 
sion work and the mission began to succeed. In nine 
stations are two thousand eight hundred Christians. 

After long instruction the King of Ovamboland was 
baptized in 191 2 and dying shortly after gave testi- 
mony to his faith upon his death-bed. Subsequently 
his successor was publicly baptized together with fifty- 
six of his subjects. 



150 the story of lutheran missions 

Norwegians in Madagascar. 

The French island of Madagascar lies 
to the southeast of the continent of 
Africa and has a Malay population of about four 
hundred thousand. Work was begun in 1818 by Eng- 
lish missionaries with the approval of King Radama, 
who acknowledged the suzerainty of England. In- 
terrupted for some months by the death of most of the 
pioneer party, the mission was recommenced in the 
year 1820, in the capital city, Antananarivo, in the 
interior highland, and was carried on with much suc- 
cess until the year 1835, when the persecuting queen, 
Ranavalona I, began severe measures against Christi- 
anity, and all the missionaries were compelled to leave 
the island. But during that period of fifteen years of 
steady labor, the native language was reduced to a 
written form, the whole Bible was translated into the 
Malagasy tongue, a school system was established in 
the central province of Imerina, many thousands of 
children were instructed, and two small churches were 
formed. About two hundred Malagasy were believed 
to have become sincere Christians, while several thou- 
sands of young people had received instruction in the 
elementary facts and truths of Christianity. That was 
the period of planting in Madagascar. 

The second period in the history of 
Persecution. ^ r ^ r^i • • • 1 c 

Malagasy Christianity was that 01 per- 
secution which continued for twenty-six years (1835- 
61). During this time persistent efforts were made to 
root out the hated foreign religion. But the number 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AFRICA 151 

of the 'Spraying people" steadily increased, and al- 
though about two hundred of them were put to death 
in various w^ays, the Christians multiplied ten- 
fold during that terrible time of trial. 

The truly Christian death of these martyrs is de- 
scribed in a native account. *'Then they prayed, *0 
Lord, receive our spirits, for Thy love to us hath 
caused this to come to us ; and lay not this sin to their 
charge.' Thus prayed they as long as they had any 
life and then they died — softly, gently; and there was 
at the time a rainbow in the heavens, which seemed to 
touch the place of the burning." 

In 1862 mission work was re-estab- 
lished, and then began the third period 
in the religious history of the country, emphatically 
that of progress. From that date until the present 
time Christianity has steadily grown in influence. 

A great outward impetus was given to the spread of 
Christianity in the early part of 1869 by the baptism 
of the queen, Ranavalona II, and her Prime Minister, 
and the subsequent destruction of the idols of the 
central provinces, and still more by the personal in- 
fluence of the sovereign in favor of the Christian re- 
ligion.* 

Among the societies which entered 

V,. P ^ Madagascar at this period was the 

Mission. ^ ^ ... 

Norwegian Missionary Society which 
settled in the province of Betsileo in 1867. With ad- 



*The material for this account was gathered from the 
Missionary Review of the World — Article by James Sibree 
—June 1895. 



152 TKB STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

mirable administration at home, and in spite of serious 
difficulty with an opposition mission established by the 
Jesuits, they have accomplished a task which is uni- 
versally praised by missionary historians. They have 
at work, besides many Norwegian and some American 
missionaries, ninety-six native pastors and over nine 
hundred catechists. There are two medical missions 
and a leper asylum, schools and printing offices. It is 
reckoned that among the one hundred and thirty 
thousand Christians in the Island, eighty-four thousand 
are Lutherans. 

Among the great names of the mission are those of 
Dahle, who established a Seminary^ for native workers, 
and Doctor Borchgrevinkj a medical missionary. 

American Societies. 

The Norvv'egians in America, always closely con- 
nected with the Church of the Fatherland, sent their 
missionary contributions at first thr»jugh the father- 
land societies, the Norwegian Missionary Society and 
the Norwegian Church (Schreuder's) Mission. To 
Schreuder's Mission the Norijjegtan Synod (American) 
still contributes, having sent in 191 5 about $10,000. 

In the work in Madagascar American Norwegians 
have a large and important part. In 1892 the Nor- 
wegian Missionary Society assigned to the United Nor- 
wegian Lutheran Church (American) the southern 
part of the island. In 1897 this field was divided 
once more, the Norwegian Lutheran Free Church 




FIRST GRADUATING CLASS FROM KINDERGARTEN AT OGI, 

JAPAN. 

GROUP OF THEOLOGICAL STUDENTS, KUMAMOTO. 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AFRICA 153 

(American) taking the western section. Together 
these two societies have a territory covering about 
thirty thousand square miles, with a population of 
almost four hundred thousand. The United Church 
contributed in 1915, $42,000 for its work and the 
Norwegian Free Church almost $17,000. Together 
they have a Christian community of about twenty-six 
hundred. 

To the work of the Leipsic Society in East Africa 
the American Lutheran Synod of Iowa contributes 
and to the work of the Hermannsburg society, the Joint 
Synod of Ohio, 

The Synod of South Carolina, now a part of the 
United Synod in the South may be said to have been 
the first Lutheran body in America to send a missionary 
to Africa. This was Boston Drayton, a colored mem- 
ber of the English Lutheran Church of Charleston, 
who sailed in 1845. Of him or of his work, little more 
IS known. 

The Republic of Liberia was estab- 

An African tablished in 1 82 1 "to be reserved for- 

Republic 

ever for the settlement of American 

freed slaves." The little republic contains about fifty 
thousand of the descendants of these early settlers and 
about tw^o million aboriginees, who are divided into 
eight tribes. Among them fetish worship, superstition, 
polygamy, tendency to constant strife, and other char- 
acteristic African faults abound. In this republic the 
mission of The General Synod was founded by the Rev. 
Morris Officer in i860. Mr. Officer had served for 



154 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

a year and a half as a missionary of the American 
Board, but his heart longed for a mission of his own 
Church, and his diary shows his deep satisfaction when 
he was authorized to begin. He describes the making 
of roads, the planting of banana and coffee trees, sweet 
potatoes and flowers. He tells of the first children in 
the school, forty boys and girls captured from a slave 
ship. When he decided upon a site for the mission he 
knelt down among his native helpers and prayed for 
God's blessing upon the new endeavor. 

In a year and a half Mr. OiEcer was compelled to 
return on account of ill health. In the meantime rein- 
forcements had arrived and the sad and stirring his- 
tory of this little mission had begun, a his- 
tory which might be celebrated, in the words of a writer 
for the Missionary Review, in some spirited poem like 
"The Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava." Of 
eighteen missionaries sent out during the first thirty-six 
years, six died within two years after reaching the 
field, while eight returned within three years with 
greatly shattered health. 

In contrast to this shadow we have the 

^I) ?^^^^ history of Doctor David A. Day, who 

Missionary. -^ •^' 

lived and labored for twenty-three 
years in this dangerous country. A man of strong body 
and fine mind. Doctor Day was an ideal missionary. 
Possessing deep faith with which to meet serious prob- 
lems, and a keen sense of humor with which to meet 
smaller difficulties, he labored until he was worn out. 
Returning to America when he dared linger no longer, 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AFRICA 155 

he died almost in sight of the home land, his wife; 
whose devotion was no less than his, having died 
two years before. Mrs. Day was made of the same 
heroic stuff as her husband. As the end of her life 
approached she urged her husband to remain in Africa 
where he was so much needed rather than join her, 
great as was her desire to see him. How many noble 
missionary wives have made similar sacrifice! 

The great regard in which Doctor Day was held, as 
well as the impressionable and affectionate nature of 
the people among whom he worked, is shown in an 
incident recorded in his biography. When the news 
came from America that Mrs. Day was dead, the little 
children of the mission gathered a bunch of white 
lilies which they put into the hands of one of their 
number who carried jthem into the room, where, 
stunned and grief-stricken, Doctor Day bent under the 
first shock of his bereavement. Silently laying the 
flowers before him, the little girl kissed his feet and as 
silently withdrew. Surely missionary work has its 
earthly as well as its heavenly reward. 

To-day the Muhlenberg mission has fifteen men and 
women at work. It counts its native Christians at 
three hundred. A valuable and interesting expansion 
of the work is the employing of Doctor Westerman, a 
distinguished German philologist, to prepare grammars 
and dictionaries of the native languages, which, to pre- 
pare for greater growth, the missionaries must learn. 
Like all of Africa this mission begs for more workers, 
more money, more interest, more prayers. 



156 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

Here closes the record of our work in Africa.. It has 
given many examples of faith and courage to mission- 
ary history, it has added many names, John Ludwig 
Krapf, Rosina Krapf, Schreuder, Day, to the roster of 
Africa's apostles. But in the words of Frederic Perry 
Noble, Africa's chief missionary historian, *Xutheran- 
ism is yet in its attitude toward missions a sleeping 
giant." Since Mr. Noble gave expression to this 
opinion, Lutheranism has made a beginning in African 
mission work. Still, however, she is not yet aroused. 
As in India, so in Africa, German missions and mis- 
sionaries have suffered cruelly in the present war. 
May the true spirit of Christ so influence His Church 
henceforth that missionary and not military warfare 
may fill the pages of history. 



CHAPTER V. 

The Lutheran Church in China, Japan and 
Elsewhere 

China. 

The Land 
The People 
Religion 
Character 
History 

Early Missions. 

Karl Frederick Gutzlaff 

Societies 

German 
Basel 
Rhenish 
Berlin 

Scandina'vtan 
Danish 

Norwegian Missionary Society 
Norwegian Lutheran China Mission 
Swedish Mission in China 
Swedish Lutheran Mission in Mongolia 
Lutheran Gospel Association of Finland 

American 

United Norwegian Lutheran Church 
Hauge's Norwegian Lutheran Synod 
Norwegian Synod 
Norwegian Free Church 
Norwegian Brethren 

Japan. 

The Land and the People 
Societies 
American 

Lutheran Gospel Association of Finland 
United Synod in the South 
General Council 
Danish American 



East Indies 
Societies 

Rhenish in Sumatra, Borneo, Nias, etc. 
Neukirchen in Java 
Dutch in Batoe Islands 

Australia Neuendettelsau 

New Guinea Neuendettelsau 

Rhenish 

The Near East 

The Jews 



Chapter V. 

THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN CHINA, JAPAN AND 
ELSEWHERE 

China. 



The Land. 



China is the most ancient of the great 
empires of the world. It comprises 
more than four million square miles and is divided into 
eighteen provinces. Among the various annexed coun- 
tries are Tartary, Mongolia and Manchuria. There 
is a wide variety of scenery and climate, there are 
mountains of great elevation and there is an enormous 
and fertile river plain, which lies on the lower courses 
of the Huang Ho and Yang-tse-Kiang Rivers and 
which supports a larger population than any other 
region of the globe of equal size. 

A Danish Lutheran missionary describes thus the 
features of the Chinese landscape: 

**The soil of the valley is clothed with light green 
or yellow rice-fields, through which the water course 
winds like a glittering silver ribbon ; along the stream, 
or on either side of the valley, wave the delicate leafy 
crowns of the bamboo reeds, bowing to the slightest 
breeze. If we look up to the mountain-sides on either 
hand, these are covered below with mulberry groves, 
cotton plantations, and trim tea-grounds, which are 



160 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

often disposed in artificial terraces, which sometimes 
also bear corn. Higher up, as far as the mountain 
will consent to be 'clothed', grow woods, among whose 
foliage the light leaves of the camphor-tree, the red- 
dish leaves of the tallow-tree, and the dark green leaves 
of the arbor vitae occupy a conspicuous place; but 
there are also found cedars and cypresses. Where the 
wood sinks into shrubbery, it frequently consist? of 
azaleas and similar plants, which we grow in green- 
houses or in windows fronting the south, and which 
in the flowering time afford a spectacle of dazzling 
beauty. There are also found groves of roses or jes- 
samines. On the whole, there are many very beauti- 
ful landscapes in China. Nor are there wanting wild 
mountain regions of an Alpine character. Deserts 
there are none; but, on the other hand, there are 
dreary and melancholy marshes, and the coasts are of- 
ten flat and tiresome. 

''While plant life is thus richly developed in China, 
the opposite is true of animal life. There is certainly 
no region on earth where it plays so slight a part 
and is so scantily represented as here. The greedy 
and reckless children of men have consumed or ex- 
pelled the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air.'' 
The people, numbering about four hun- 
dred million, live chiefly in large 
towns and in dense settlements along the rivers. 
Millions live on the rivers in houseboats. The Chi- 
nese are industrious and thrifty and at the same time 
ignorant and exceedingly unprogressive. Only a small 




LUTHERAN CHURCH IN BORNEO. 
LUTHERAN CHURCH IN JAVA. 



CHINA, JAPAN AND ISLANDS 161 

class IS educated, and education, like all else that is 
Chinese, has hitherto looked to the past for its sub- 
ject matter. It consists of the fixing in mind of the 
ancient classical writings and the acquiring of the an- 
cient, classical style. To the foreigner the language 
offers obstacles which are almost insurmountable. 
There are only four hundred different words, but 
these are so modified by inflections and by the tone of 
the voice that their variations are legion. One of the 
early missionaries said that in order to acquire the 
Chinese language one must have a **body of brass, 
lungs of steel, a head of oak, the eyes of eagles, the 
heart of an apostle, the memory of an angel and the 
life of Methuselah". The written language is even 
more difficult to learn than the spoken language and 
both present the greatest difficulty to the missionary 
in that they contain no such words as sin, holiness, 
regeneration, spirit, God, which are so essential a part 
of the Christian vocabulary. 

Three religions are firmly established, 
Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. 
These are not clearly differentiated, by any means, 
but the individual frequently selects from each the el- 
ements which please him. Doctor Warneck describes 
this strange eclectic religion as follows : "All of them 
reverence Confucius, regulate their life — to a certain 
extent — according to his precepts, and are devoted to 
ancestor worship; all have recourse, especially in sick- 
ness and need, to the magic arts and superstitious hocus 
pocus of the Taoists and almost all commend their souls 



162 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

at death to the Buddhist priests, have masses read for 
the soul and make use of the Buddhist burial cere- 
monial. The polite man says to the man of different 
belief, and the enlightened man who no longer be- 
lieves anything repeats it: 'The three doctrines come 
to the same thing in the end'." 

There are in China also about thirty million Mo- 
hammedans. 

The Chinese character is as difficult to 

Character. . ^u r^w i • u i 

impress as the Chmese language is hard 

to learn. Since the Chinese worships that which is 
old, the stranger and foreigner seems to him indeed 
a ''devil" ; since he is self-righteous, he does not con- 
sider himself an object for missionary effort. It was 
at first laughable to him that missionaries should come 
to his land with so foolish a purpose. In scores of 
cases he punished the effrontery of their undertaking 
with death. 

Nevertheless upon his hardened and indifferent 
heart there has been wrought a wonderful work. To 
Christian nations he has learned to look not only for 
a better educational system but with increasing eager- 
ness for a better religion. Recently an edict was passed 
declaring Confucianism to be still the State religion, 
but at the same time thousands were thronging to 
hear the speakers in a nation-wide Christian campaign. 

^^. Until the middle of the Nineteenth 

China no 

Longer a Century China was closed to foreign- 

Closed Land. ^j.g^ i^ jg^2^ ^^ ^j^^ ^^^ ^f ^l^g jj^f^, 

mous Opium War by which England forced the opium 



CHINA, JAPAN AND ISLANDS 163 

trade upon unwilling China, five ports were opened, 
Shangai, Ningpo, Foochow, Amoy and Canton, and 
the Island of Hongkong was ceded to England. In 
these ports missionaries went at once to work. In 
1850 the Taiping Rebellion seemed to promise for 
a while not only sweeping reforms but the possible 
acceptance of the religion of the foreigners, but it 
degenerated into a barbarous and cruel rebellion which 
was eventually subdued by "Chinese" Gordon at the 
head of the Imperial troops. 

In 1856 there was another Opium War in which 
France joined. At its close nine more ports were 
opened. In i860 there was a third war and finally 
twenty-four ports were opened. Now missionaries 
were allowed free course through the Empire, but 
they had become more than ever in the eyes of the peo- 
ple "foreign devils". 

The Boxer ^^ 1900, by which time It was esti- 

Uprising. mated that in spite of fearful opposi- 

tion there were two hundred and fifteen thousand 
Christians, came the Boxer uprising. Disapproving 
of the progressive policies of the young Emperor 
alarmed by the threatening advance of Germany, 
Russia, England and France, the Chinese determined 
upon a wholesale slaughter, not only of mis- 
sionaries and other foreigners, but of native Chris- 
tians as well. With indescrible barbarity thousands 
were slain, among them one hundred and thirty-four 
missionaries, fifty-two children of missionaries and 
sixteen thousand native Christians. 



164 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

The effect upon Christian missions was extraor- 
dinary. As though the rain of blood and fire had 
been a refreshing shower, the harvest sprang up. Tru- 
ly the blood of martyrs was once more the seed of 
the Church. Within ten years after the uprising the 
number of Christians had more than doubled. 

The first Christian mission to the 

The First Chinese was that of the heroic Nesto- 

Missionanes. 

rians in the Seventh Century of which 

little but a traditional account remains. Roman 
Catholic missions record the names of many heroes, 
but on account of the hardness of the heart of the 
people and also on account of the lack of wisdom of the 
missionaries, no permanent missions were established. 

Before the treaty ports were opened in 1842, 
the English missionary Morrison visited the country 
secretly and began Protestant missions by translating 
the whole Bible into Chinese. Equal in devotion and 
diligence and with a peculiar interest for us was another 
missionary, Karl Frederick Giitzlaff, a Lutheran whose 
ardent appeal for China helped to quicken the mis- 
sionary spirit in the American Lutheran Church and 
also inspired David Livinstone to give his life to mis- 
sions. 

Giitzlaff was born of humble folk in 

A Letter to Pyritz in Pomerania in 1803. When 

the King. ^ ^ 

he was twelve years old he was appren- 
ticed to a saddler, but he had other intentions for his 
life, and wrote in poetical form his desire to become 
a famous man. This poem the lad addressed to no less 



CHINA, JAPAN AND ISLANDS 165 

a person than the King of Prussia, through whom he 
was sent first to Halle to school and afterwards to 
the institute of Jaenicke at Berlin. In 1826 he went 
as a missionary of the Netherlands Society to Java. 
After several years of labor, he determined to pene- 
trate into closed and inhospitable China. When the 
Netherlands Society declined to give him permission, 
he left their service in 1831 and became an interpreter 
on a coast vessel. 

Appeals for Meanwhile during his service in Java, 
Help. GiitzlafE had learned the Chinese lan- 

guage, the most difficult of the many tongues w^hich 
his extraordinary gift for language enabled him to 
master. Now in the many journeys which he made 
up and down the coast, he began to preach and to 
distribute thousands of tracts of his own translating. 
He wrote to England and America earnest appeals 
that workers be sent to share in his labors. Pres- 
ently he was made an interpreter in the English con- 
sular serv^ice, in which position he had wide oppor- 
tunity for Christian w^ork. At the end of the Opium 
War he gave valuable service by his knowledge of the 
country and the people. Tradition records that at 
this time among China's vast population there were 
six Christians. 

Though five ports had been opened by the treaty 
of Nanking, foreigners were not allowed to go far 
beyond them. To meet this difficulty, Giitzlaflf began 
the training of bands of native workers who should 
carry the Gospel to the most distant of the eighteen 



166 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

provinces. He continued to preach and to call upon 
the home lands for aid. In 1849 he visited Europe. 
Travelling rapidly, he flew 'like an angel" through 
most of the European countries, preaching, plead- 
ing and endeavoring to form societies, vv^hich should 
divide vast China into missionary provinces. Among 
the fev^ who heard and answered his plea was, as we 
have seen, David Livingstone. 

. ^ . In 1850 Giitzlaff returned to China. 

Disappoint- The bands of native workers which he 
^^^^' had trained with such enthusiasm had 

not lived up to his high hopes but had basely be- 
trayed him. Before he could do much toward re- 
pairing the damage which they had wrought, he died 
at the age of forty-eight. He was buried in Hong 
Kong and over his body was erected a mighty stone 
bearing in English the inscription, "An Apostle", and 
in German, *'The Apostle to the Chinese". 
Author and The literary labors of Giitzlaff were 

Translator. enormous, especially when we consider 

that he was constantly occupied with other affairs as 
missionary and interpreter. He translated the Bible 
into Siamese; he aided the Englishman Robert Mor- 
rison in his translation of the Bible into Chinese; 
he published a monthly magazine in Chinese and wrote 
in Chinese various books on useful subjects. Among 
his English and German works were a "Journal of 
Three Voyages along the Coast of China in 1831, 
1832 and 1833," "A Sketch of Chinese History, An- 
cient and Modern", '^China Opened" and "The Life 
of Taow-Kwang." 



CHINA, JAPAN AND ISLANDS 167 

As remarkable as Giitzlaff's talent and industry was 
his enthusiasm. Where his work did not succeed, 
failure was brought about not by any lack in himself 
but in those of whom he expected larger things than 
they could accomplish. 

A missionary historian describes a memorial to Giitz- 

laff, which seems singularly appropriate to his life of 

devotion. 

^'We were passing through the Straits 
A Memorial. ^ ^^ ^ • j • u^ i, 

or l^ormosa at midnight when we saw 

suddenly before us on China^s wild coast a towering 

lighthouse. At the same moment a loud cry came over 

the water, 'Giitzlaff !' We asked who was summoned 

and they answered that the lighthouse was named 

for the missionary GiitzlaflE, and thus by the use of 

his name instead of the accustomed 'Beware', was 

his memory recalled." 

German Societies. 

It is proper to include here as elsewhere the his- 
tories of those German societies, which, though they 
are not wholly Lutheran, yet employ and are sup- 
ported by many Lutherans. The three Lutheran or 
partly Lutheran organizations which have missions in 
China are the Basel, the Berlin and the Rhenish so- 
cieties. 

In response to the appeal of Giitzlaff, the Basel 
Society sent to China in 1847 two missionaries,L^c/r- 
ler and Hamberg, Greeted with joy by Giitzlaff, 
they set about learning the Chinese language and be- 



168 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

gan at once to preach with the aid of interpreters. 
Their work was begun in the southwestern part of 
Canton, the most southern of China's eighteen pro- 
vinces. So well did they labor that by 1855 they had 
one hundred and seventy-five Christians. Gradually 
a thoroughly organized mission was established with 
the characteristic Basel features of industrial work 
and careful education. In 1897 the mission cele- 
brated its fiftieth anniversary, together with the fif- 
tieth anniversary of the work of Missionary Lechler, 
the latter a rare and notable occasion in the history 
of missions. 

To-day the Basel Society works in two 

Fifty Years districts, one in the highlands, the 
of Service. , fe j 

Other in the lowlands of Canton. It 

has a staff of forty-seven missionaries, who are di- 
vided among seventeen main stations, and one hun- 
dred and ninety-seven out-stations. 

In addition to its foreign forces it has at work 
two hundred and twenty natives. Its communicant 
members are seven thousand, the total number of its 
Christians eleven thousand. 

With the Basel missionaries there went to China 
in 1847 two missionaries from the Rhenish Society, 
Genahr and Kuster. They established themselves 
in the province of Canton and nearer Hong Kong 
than Lechler and Hamberg. The mission has had 
during the seventy-five years of its existence many dif- 
ficulties, but, though it has never grown to be very 
large, it has accomplished a fine work. 



CHINA, JAPAN AND ISLANDS 169 

A Missionary C)ne of the first of its misfortunes was 
Sermon. the death of Missionary Genahr, who 

contracted cholera from a Christian who had been 
cast out by his employers. The earnest spirit of this 
pious man may be read in a little missionary sermon 
from his pen concerning those easy-going Christians 
who think that it lies entirely within their own good 
pleasure whether they will do anything for work 
abroad. *'In the Book of Judges, fifth chapter, twen- 
ty-third verse, we find: 'Curse ye Meroz, said the 
angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants 
thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, 
to the help of the Lord against the mighty.' In an 
• old book we find the following questions and answers 
upon this verse : 

*' 'Who was commanded to curse Meroz?' An- 
swer: 'The angel of the Lord.' 

'''What had Meroz done?' 'Nothing.' 

" 'How? why, then is Meroz cursed?' 'Because she 
has done nothing.' 

"'What should Meroz have done?' 'Come to the 
help of the Lord.' 

" 'Could not the Lord, then, have succeeded with- 
out Meroz?' 'The Lord did succeed without Meroz.' 

" 'Then has the Lord met with a loss thereby?' 
'No, but Meroz has.' 

"'Is Meroz, then, to be cursed therefor?' 'Yes, 
and that bitterly.' 

" 'Is it right that a man should be cursed for hav- 



170 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

ing done nothing?' 'Yes, when he should have done 
something.' 

'''Who says that?' 'The angel of the Lord; and 
the Lord Himself says (Luke 12:47) ; "He that knew 
his Lord's will and did it not, shall be beaten with 
many stripes." ' " 

Danger and I^ ^^1^ ^^^"^ ^^ ^he Stations of the 
Loss. Rhenish Society were destroyed by a 

fanatic mob who accused the missionaries of desiring 
to poison all those who were not Christians. Again 
in 1898, stations were destroj^ed by robbers and rebels. 
Fortunately the Boxer uprising in 1900 left 
the property of this mission almost untouched and the 
missionaries returning after it was safe, were able to 
begin almost where they had left ofiE. 

At Tungkum the society has a large hospital, whose 
superintendent had in 1899 twenty thousand consul- 
tations. The latest reports gave two thousand five 
hundred church members divided among seven sta- 
tions, at which there are twenty-three missionaries. 
In 1873 the Rhenish Society took over what remained 
of Giitzlaff's mission. 

A Missionary Among the missionaries of the Rhen- 
Scholar. Jsh Society was Doctor Ernest Fabery 

a scholar of immense learning, who, after being in 
the service of the Society for eight years joined the 
General Protestant Missionary Society. He is es- 
pecially famous for his translations of the Chinese 
classics and it was said of him that he spoke a better 
Chinese than the natives themselves. 



CHINA, JAPAN AND ISLANDS 171 

The Berlin Society has two separate 
A Chinese £^^3 ^f j^^^^ j^^ China. The first is 

Saint Paul. 

in the Province of Canton, near the 

missions of the Basel and Rhenish societies. The mis- 
sion has its record of loss and persecution during the 
native uprisings and also its stories of victory. In its 
early history the station at Thamschui was the scene 
of a cruel attack. The mob w^as led by a young man 
blowing a trumpet and calling to his followers to 
exterminate the foreign devils, who meanwhile fled 
from house roof to house roof and finally escaped. 
Subsequently this young man was converted and be- 
came a powerful evangelist who like Saint Paul en- 
deavored with all his power to build up that which he 
had hitherto torn down. 

In Time of The second station of the Berlin So- 

Famine. ciety is in the Province of Shantung. 

In consequence of the assistance given during the 
famine in 1889, when over $200,000 was dis- 
tributed and over one hundred thousand lives 
saved, many became interested in Christianity as the 
religion which inspires deeds of kindness and mercy; 
and during 1890 it is said that over a thousand 
persons were baptized whose attention was drawn 
to the religion of Christ by the fact that the mission- 
aries were so prominent in securing this aid and dis- 
tributing it. In this work and its reward the Ber- 
lin Society had a part. 

The following letter from a missionary of the 
Berlin Society describes vividly a Chinese city and 
gives an account of the work of the Christian evangelist. 



172 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

A Chinese *We hired a bearer and proceeded 

City* through the endless confusion of the 

narrow, dirty streets of Canton, through the evil smells 
of a many-thousand-year-old decaying culture, on past 
all the innumerable shops and idol temples, halls of 
justice and idol altars, past all the numberless human 
forms, poor and rich, well and sick, vested wuth silk 
or covered with rags, painted with vermilion or con- 
sumed with leprosy, which flood the lanes of the giant 
city of Southern China, out through the great iron 
Northern gate, through several streets of the suburbs, 
past scattered huts — and now the great alluvial plain 
of the Northstream delta stretches before our eyes. 
A pure air breathes over the land and encompasses 
us after we have escaped the exhalations which rest, 
suffocating and heavy, upon the city of a million 
souls. 

In the *'I^ ^he schools and on the crossways, 

Mountains. where the passing wayfarers were rest- 

ing in the tea-huts, we sought opportunities to preach 
the Word of God. Often we found them, often we 
waited in vain. Many a guest listened an instant, then 
silently took up his bundle and went on his way. There 
was nothing in the proclamation of the Word that en- 
gaged the man's interest. Companies of heathen hungry 
for salvation, and hanging upon the lips of the mission- 
ary, were not to be found in the mountains; such, we 
may well say, are not to be found anywhere in China. 
The Lord alone knows where a seed-corn of eternity 
sinks into a human heart. The man takes it with him ; 



CHINA, JAPAN AND ISLANDS 173 

often it sinks out of reach or is choked by the thorns 
and briers of heathenism, yet often, after the lapse ot 
years, it shoots up again into the light. At one tea- 
hut, which was covered with the leaves of the fern 
palm, there gathered around us a great company of 
women. They were burdened with stones out of the 
neighboring quarry, at the same time carrying their 
infants on their hips. They laid off their loads and 
listened, and some asked very intelligent questions, 
^Sir, if we are not to worship idols, how shall we 
pray to the heavenly Father?^ A heathen, sitting 
near, disturbed us by his unseemly witticisms. The 
language is rich in such equivocal turns. People do 
not understand the reference, and are taken in by the 
seeming harmlessness of the phrase. The helper ex- 
plained to me the more usual of them. They open 
a view into the hideous depths of heathenism.." 

This description was written many years ago. To- 
day the missionary historian rejoices to record that 
there are companies of Chinese hungry for the news of 
salvation. In many instances the largest auditoriums 
in great cities have proved too small for the throngs 
which pressed to attend evangelistic meetings. 

The Berlin Society has a staff of thirty-six mission- 
aries in fifteen main stations. Its baptized Christians 
number about ten thousand. 

The contribution of German Lutherans to mission 
work in China is not to be reckoned altogether by fig- 
ures. Here as elsewhere the Germans have thorough- 
ly studied the native languages, and have devoted much 



174 THE STORY OF LUTHEJRAN MISSIONS 

time to the writing of grammars and dictionaries and 
the making of translations so that the foundation might 
be well laid. Their labors have been a benefit to 
other missionary societies as well as to their own. 

Scandinavian Societies. 

The Danish Lutherans have a mission in Manchu- 
ria which was begun in 1895. Two stations are in 
the south and one at Harbin. There are forty-two 
men and women at work and the number of baptized 
Christians is nearly one thousand. 

The missionaries appointed at the opening of the 
work in China visited on their way the United States 
and roused interest in many churches of the United 
Danish Evangelical Lutheran Synod, which now aids 
in the China work of the Fatherland Society. 

The Norwegian Missionary Society has six stations 
in the Hunan Province, in which there are fifteen hun- 
dred church members and one thousand catechumens. 

The Norwegian Lutheran China Mission works in 
Northern Hupeh with twenty-nine missionaries and 
has won about eight hundred and fifty Christians. 

The Swedish Mission in China^ founded in 1887, 
labors in connection with the China Inland Mission, 
a large and successful inter-denominational mission, 
which has more than twenty thousand communicants. 
To this work other Swedish societies contribute. 

The founding of the Swedish Mission 

in China was due to the influence of 

a visit from Lars Skrefsrud, one of the founders of 



CHINA, JAPAN AND ISLANDS 175 

the Home Mission to the Santals in India. His 
burning enthusiasm for the cause of missions influenced 
Erik Folke to become in 1887 a pioneer in China. He 
studied the Chinese language in the school of the 
China Inland Mission and then arranged for the 
founding of an independent Swedish Mission, which 
should, however, work in connection with the China 
Inland Mission. Mr. Folke's fearful experiences dur- 
ing the Boxer uprising so aflfected his health that it 
was necessary that he should return to Sw^eden where 
he serves as president of the Home Committee. 

The field of this Swedish Mission is composed of 
the parts of the Provinces of Shensi, Shansi and Honan, 
which meet at the turn of the Yellow River from south 
to east. It numbers almost as many inhabitants as 
Sweden. Among the mission institutions are opium 
refuges where those aflflicted with the opium habit 
may go for treatment. 

The Swedish There is a small Swedish Lutheran 
Martyrs. Mission in Mongolidj begun in 1 899 

with three missionaries, its station being at Halkjng 
Osso, eighty-five miles north of Kalgan. This mis- 
sion suffered greatly during the Boxer uprising, its 
three missionaries being killed. It seemed for a long 
time that labor in this district was worse than useless, 
but a few faithful workers have persisted. Now the 
three missionaries who are on the field believe that 
the harvest will shortly be gathered. 

The Swedish missions have laid many sacrifices 
upon the altar of the cause which they love. The 



176 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

total number of Swedes murdered in the Boxer upris- 
ing was about forty, one-third of the whole number of 
the westerners who were killed. A number of these 
were Lutherans. If the blood of its martyrs is the 
seed of the Church, there opens for Sweden a great 
future in China. 

The Lutheran Gospel Association of Finland car- 
ries on a mission in Northern Hupeh with sixteen 
missionaries in four stations. 

American Societies. 

A Generous '^^^ Danish Lutherans support, as we 

People. have seen, the mission of their father- 

land. 

Five American Norwegian Lutheran bodies have 
missions in China, to which they contributed in 191 5, 
about $118,000. 

The United Norwegian Lutheran Church is at 
work in the south central portion of the Province of 
Honan, where it took over in 1904 several stations of 
an independent society. It has now six stations 
and forty-nine missionaries. The Christians num- 
ber about fifteen hundred. Among the stations are 
Sinyang, where there are training schools for native 
workers and Kioshan where the mission hospital is 
situated. 

Hauge's Norwegian Lutheran Synod began its work 
in China in 1891. The main station is Fan Cheng and 
the territory lies partly in the Honan and partly in 
the Hupeh Province. The field of this mission covers 



CHINA, JAPAN AND ISLANDS 177 

six thousand square miles and has a population of be- 
tween three and four millions. The working force 
includes twentj^-one missionaries, two of them med- 
ical missionaries, and ninety-eight native helpers. The 
Christians number tvv^enty-six hundred. 

The Norwegian Synod has had a mission in Honan 
since 191 2. Here ten missionaries are at work in 
three stations. 

The Norwegian Free Church has been at work in 
Honan since 191 5. There are six missionaries at work 
in a section the population of which numbers two mil- 
lion. 

The Norwegian Lutheran Brethren Society estab- 
lished its mission in Honan in 1900. There are four- 
teen missionaries at work. 

Another ^i^^^t August ana Synod^ has had since 

Large Field. igo^ a mission in the Honan province 
and now has fourteen men and five w^omen at work 
there. The field is in the form of a triangle with one 
corner at Hsu-Cheo, one at Nan-Yang-Fu and the 
third at Honan-Fu. Its area is about ten thousand 
square miles, a little less than fhe State of Minnesota, 
with a population ten times as large, that is, about 
three million. The province of Honan was one of 
the last to submit to the invasion of the missionary 
and the first missionaries of the Augustana Synod suf- 
fered during their search for a mission field from the 
feeling against the foreigner. Their experience is 



*A part of the General Council. 



178 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

vividly described by their first missionary, the Rev. 
Edwins.f 

A Perilous 'To our knowledge no danger threat- 

Journey, ened us at any time except on the sec- 

ond day of our journey. Then it happened that we 
were attacked at a country village where two of the 
common Chinese open-air theatres had attracted a con- 
course of about two thousand idle spectators. Through 
the village street, which was crowded to the utmost, 
our clumsy mule carts had to make their way. On 
seeing that we were foreigners many in the crowd 
began to yell out a kind of unearthly war-whoop. Our 
drivers were somewhat uneasy and desired to move 
on as fast as the dense crowd would make way. The 
two-wheeled cart swayed from side to side on the un- 
even road. A basket of Chinese steamed bread was 
upset by a slight collision with one of our carts. The 
vendor, a young boy, screamed loudly as his little 
loaves rolled on the ground and were snatched up by 
the thievish bystanders. This episode increased the 
commotion. Little by little, however, our carts plowed 
their way through the dense mass of surging humanity, 
and we were soon on the point of leaving the crowd 
behind us, but then the mob followed us hooting and 
yelling and hurling at us and our mules and vehicles 
whatever missiles were at hand. Some of our little 
company received heavy blows. The mules pulling 
the foremost cart stopped aiid for a moment it seemed 



fThis account is taken from Our First Decade in China, 
published by the China Board of the Augustana Synod. 



CHINA, JAPAN AND ISLANDS 179 

that we must be surrounded, but fortunately our driv- 
ers succeeded in getting the animals started again and 
by rapid driving we managed to outdistance the howl- 
ing mob.'* 

Provided with a military escort, travelling by an- 
other route and aided by the workers of the China In- 
land Mission, the Americans selected their field. To- 
day thirty-two missionaries are preaching and teaching. 
Two hospitals and a school for the blind have been 
established. In 19 15 the Synod contributed $40,000 
to this work. 

Co-operation Recently all the Lutheran Missions in 
a Reality. Central China united in a co-operative 

plan of educational work, which it is expected will 
result in economy and efficiency. A union theological 
seminary was established at Shekow in Hupeh Pro- 
vince near Hankow and a union college, a union pub- 
lishing house, and a union periodical are under con- 
sideration. In the words of a Lutheran missionary his- 
torian: ''Co-operation is not only a watchword but 
an established reality in the Lutheran missions of 
China ; and thus the foreign missions of our American 
Lutheran Church excel the home-churches in wisdom 
and working efficiency." 

The Heart '^'^^ opportunities of the Lutheran 

of China. Church in Central China are set forth 

in Our First Decade in China, "It will appear in 
looking at the map of China and noting the impor- 
tant position that the Lutheran Church holds geograph- 
ically, that God has meant her to be a dominating force 



180 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

in new China. He has entrusted to her the very heart 
of China. The Lutheran Church occupies in the cen- 
tral provinces territory equal to all of Illinois and 
Iowa and half of Wisconsin, or as large as the whole 
of New England plus New York, Pennsylvania, New 
Jersey, Delaware and half of Maryland. In this ter- 
ritory she is ministering to a population of fitty mil- 
lion souls." 

A hundred years have passed since 

The Work of j^^j^^^^ Morrison, the English mission- 
a Century. . . ^ 

ary, baptized his first convert and re- 
corded in his diary. "At a spring of water issuing 
from the foot of a lofty hill, by the seaside, away from 
human observation, I baptized him in the name of 

the Father, Son and Holy Ghost May he be 

the first fruits of a great harvest." To-day there 
are in China over five thousand foreign missionaries, 
seventeen thousand native workers and two hundred 
and thirty-five thousand communicant members of the 
Protestant Church. Of these about ten per cent, are 
Lutherans. 

Japan. 

Japan proper consists of four large is- 
lands, Yezo, Hondo, Shikoku and Ky- 
ushu and about three thousand smaller islands. In 
the northern part the climate is severe, in the soutnern 
part semi-tropical. From north to south through the 
center of the large islands runs a long line of volcanic 
mountains whose highest peaks are still active. From 



CHINA, JAPAN AND ISLANDS 181 

this high ridge the land slopes gradually to either 
shore. Only about one-tenth can be cultivated, an 
area which is equal to about one-tenth of the State 
of California. From this soil about fifty-three mil- 
lion persons draw their sustenance. 

Like the Chinese, the Japanese se- 
lects his religion from among three 
great religions, Shintoism, Buddhism and Confucian- 
ism. Like the Chinese he frequently thinks it well 
to mix the three. If he is a Confucianist, he is thor- 
oughly trained in the rules which govern man's rela- 
tion to the State and to his fellow man; if he is a 
Buddhist, he learns self-control and self discipline in 
order that he may at the last become absorbed into 
a vague impersonal diety; if he is a Shintoist he wor- 
ships the rulers and his ancestors. 

The Japanese is intensely patriotic and 
The Japanese . . , , . ., tj* 

a Lover of mvariably civil and courteous, rlis 

Beauty and love of beauty finds expression in al- 
most every detail of his life, his 
practical ability needs no further proof than the 
adaptation of the nation's millions to its circumscribed 
area. His life is happy; but the volcanic eruptions, 
numerous earthquakes, dreadful tidal waves which 
bring to his lips a patient smile and a fatalistic word 
"No help for it" must stir in the depths of his human 
heart other feelings, however unexpressed of terror 
and dismay. To him, so far lifted above many other 
non-Christians but lacking the chief thing, the Chris- 



182 THE STORY OP LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

tian's God offers peace for terror and assurance for 
dismay. 

Scandinavian Societies. 

There is but one European Lutheran Society 
in Japan, the Lutheran Gospel Association of Finland, 
which has six men and three women in its field north- 
west of Tokyo, where it began to work in 1902. 

American Societies. 

"Kyushu The mission of the United Synod in 

Gakuin." the South was begun in 1892. It has 

met with the difficulties and obstacles common to all 
young enterprises and is now well-established. Its 
chief stations are in Saga, a city of thirty-five thousand, 
in Kumamoto, a city of sixty-five thousand and in 
Fukuoka, which, together with its twin city Hakata 
has a population of eighty thousand. The island of 
Kyushu upon which these cities lie is densely popu- 
lated, and there is an average of only one Protestant 
Christian to over one thousand of the people. In the 
city of Kumamoto is located the educational insti- 
tution of the United Synod and the only Lutheran 
educational institution in Japan, called Kyushu 
Gakuin, which consists of a middle school and a 
theological department for the training of native 
workers. Here almost six hundred boys and young 
men are being educated, who are but a small part of 
those who would gladly come if there were larger 
accommodations. The work among the little children 



CHINA, JAPAN AND ISLANDS 183 

in Sunday schools and kindergartens meets with hearty 
support at home, a work whose joys it is easy to com- 
prehend. The United Synod has at work four mis- 
sionary families and two single women. Its baptized 
membership is over six hundred. 

The second American Lutheran body 
Candidates to enter Japan was the Danish Synod 

tian Work. which established itself in 1898 in the 

same neighborhood, its chief station 
being at Kurume. At Kurume it has a baptized mem- 
bership of one hundred and forty four. From this con- 
gregation ten young men have during the last few years 
offered themselves for training in Christian work. 
The Danes send to the school at Kumamoto a resident 
professor, the Rev. J, M. T, Winther, who is a highly 
efficient teacher. 

A Student The last of the American Lutherans 

Dormitory. to establish a mission in Japan was the 

General Council j which in 1908 began work in Tokyo, 
the chief city of the Empire. It has now a second 
station at Nagoj^a. Besides its preaching and edu- 
cational work the mission conducts a dormitory for 
students who come to Tokyo to attend the university. 
It is hoped by means of Christian influence and by 
the Christian services which these young men are re- 
quired to attend to win many. There are two mis- 
sionary families in residence and a baptized member- 
ship of twenty-eight. The General Council main- 
tains a professor in the school at Kumamoto and con- 



184 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

tributes at present a third of the running expenses of 
the school. 

One of the many happy features of Lutheran work 
in Japan is the friendly co-operation of the three 
American Boards. It is the intention of them and 
their missionaries to build up a single, united Japanese 
Church. Freely aiding one another, all lending their 
services to the building up of the school in Kumamoto, 
they are directed by a common conference and their 
financial matters are managed by a single treasurer. 

In the words of a missionary of the 

The Christian United Synod in the South, ''Every 
Church in . ,. . . i i • 

Japan. mdication pomts to the ultimate suc- 

cess of the Church in Japan. Only 

lethargy and unbelief can rob her of the victory 

The leaven of Christ^s Gospel has been working in 
Japanese society for half a century, and under its 
influence the whole lump is gradually undergoing a 
subtle change. There are higher ideals of social and 
civic righteousness; different conceptions of respon- 
sibility toward the weak; a growing consciousness of 
sin, which never existed before; dissatisfaction with 
present religious and moral conditions; an impelling 
desire to progress along the lines of the highest ma- 
terial and spiritual development of the west A 

learned professor in the Imperial University, himself 
a non-Christian, has said: 'Buddhism can never again 
control the thought of Japan; Christianity will rule 
the life of New Japan.' " 



china, japan and islands 185 

The East Indies. 

-^, p. Southeast of India lies a group of large 

Prospect islands known by the name of East 

Pleases. Indies. These are colonial possessions 

of Holland. Their population numbering thirty-eight 
million is divided among various tribes of the Malay 
race whose character is as varied as that of the dif- 
ferent tribes of Africa. The land is rich and its 
products many, among them sugar-cane, coffee, rice, 
spices and all varieties of tropical fruits. Many sec- 
tions are covered with forests of valuable timber. 

There are Lutheran missionaries on the islands of 
Borneo, Sumatra, Nias, Java and on the group to the 
west of Sumatra, which are called the Batoe Islands. 
On the fertile and beautiful Island of 
Borneo the Rhenish Society^ has had 
its missionaries for eighty years. Beginning along the 
southeast coast, the missionaries pushed gradually into 
the interior by way of the rivers. The Dyaks among 
whom they labored were the fiercest of savages and 
"head hunters.'' Finally eight stations were estab- 
lished and the future appeared bright, when in 1859 
during a rebellion of the Malays against their Dutch 
rulers, the Dyaks became involved. In the struggle 
which ensued, all the inland stations were destroyed 
and seven of the missionaries were murdered. In a 
few years the work was recommenced. To-day there 
are eighteen missionaries and the native church num- 
bers about three thousand five hundred. 



*It should be remembered that the Rhenish Society is 
largely but not entirely Lutheran. 



186 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

Sumatra--A "^^^ more than fifty years, since 1861, 

Great the Rhenish Society has conducted a 

Achievement. j^j^gj^^^ j^^ ^^e island of Sumatra. The 

larger part of the population is Mohammedan, but 
in the interior there are tribes who still retain their 
primitive religion. Among these tribes are the 
Bataks, who have a speech and written characters 
of their own. Once cannibals, they had been before 
the advent of the Rhenish Missionary Society the 
object of evangelizing work which had failed. In 
spite of constant danger the early missionaries con- 
tinued faithful. The annals of missions have scarcely 
anywhere a greater victory to record. There is now 
a well organized church partly self-supporting. 
Thirty Batak native preachers have been ordained 
and work is carried on at forty-one main stations and 
five hundred out-stations. Twenty-seven thousand five 
hundred Batak children are being educated in five 
hundred schools. There is a training school for 
native preachers, a hospital, a leper asylum and a 
large industrial school. The Christian community 
numbers about one hundred and fifty thousand. 

During the last twenty years the Rhen- 
Dea onesses^ ^^^ Society has sent out deaconesses to 

take special charge of the work among 
women. They manage the girls' schools, teach and 
give Bible lessons to married and unmarried women 
and try in every way to further the development of 
their own sex. 



CHINA, JAPAN AND ISLANDS 187 

Not only have the Rhenish missionaries won a large 
harvest from among the Bataks, but they are winning 
also many converts from among the Mohammedans, 
a much more difficult task. 

The effect of the Christian religion is described in a 
letter from a Rhenish missionary in Sumatra. 
A Land *'What a difference between now and 

Transformed. thirteen years ago! Then everything 
was unsafe ; no one dared to go half an hour's distance 
from his village; war, robbery, piracy and slavery 
reigned everywhere. Now there is a free, active Chris- 
tian life, and churches full of attentive hearers. The 
faith of our young Christians is seen in their deeds. 
They have renounced idolatrous customs; they visit 
the sick, and pray with them ; they go to their enemies 
and make conciliation with them. This has often made 
a powerful impression on the heathen, because they saw 
that the Christians could do what was impossible to 
heathen — they could forgive injuries. Many heathen 
have been so overcome by this conduct of the Christians 
that they came to us and said: ^The Lord Jesus has 
conquered.' *' 

The failure of Mohammedanism to meet the deep 
need of the human soul is shown in another letter from 
a Rhenish missionary in the same field. 
In the *'Here I must make mention of the 

Last Hour. faithful Asenath, whom on the last day 

of the old year we committed to the bosom of the earth. 
After an illness patiently endured for two years she 
felt her end approaching. As the last provision for her 



188 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

way she wished yet once more to enjoy the Holy Sup- 
per. I administered it to her in her roomy house before a 
large assemblage. As I was about to give her the 
bread she said, *Let me first pray.' And now the 
woman, who for weeks had not been able to sit upright, 
straightened herself up, and prayed for fully ten 
minutes, as if she w^ould fain pray away every earthly 
care out of her heart. I have seldom heard a woman 
pray in such wise. Thereupon she received the sacred 
elements. The next day I found with her a Moham- 
medan chieftain, who on taking leave wished her health 
and long life. *What say you?' she replied, 'after that 
I have no further longing. My wish is now vto go to 
heaven, to my Lord. Death has no longer any terrors 
for me.' Astonished, the Mohammedan replied: 'Such 
language is strange to us. We shrink and cower be- 
fore death, and therefore use every means possible to 
recover and live long.' 

''Even so I think of our James, whose 

jLMnTHopl ««ly «°" had died. When at the fu- 
neral I pressed his hand, with some 
words of comfort, he said: 'Only do not suppose that 
I murmur and complain. All that God does to me, is 
good and wholesome for me. I shall hereafter find 
my son again in life eternal.' So vanish little by little 
the comfortless waitings of heathenism; the beams of 
a living hope penetrate the pangs and the terrors of 
death, as the beams of the sun the clouds of the night. 
And, as the hopelessness of heathenism is disappearing, 
so is also its implacability. When Christians contend, 



CHINA, JAPAN AND ISLANDS 189 

and at the Communion I saj^ to them: 'Give each 
other your hands', often they say: 'Nature is against it; 
but how can I withstand the graciousness of my 
Saviour?' Such words are not seldom heard. And am 
I not well entitled to hope, that they, as a great gift of 
my God, warrant a confident hope in the final and 
glorious victory of the Prince of Life, and of his great 
and righteous cause?'' 

On the Island of Nias and in some of 
the lesser islands, the Rhenish mis- 
sionaries have been at work since 1865. Here there 
are about a quarter of a million inhabitants who are 
racially related to the Bataks. Persisting through 
many years with but a few baptisms, the missionaries 
were finally rewarded. There are now thirteen 
stations with eighteen thousand Christians. The num- 
ber of inquiries is greatest in those portions of the 
island where heathenism is the least broken, and the 
whole island seems to be open to the Gospel. 

The Rhenish missionaries have in all in Malaysia 
Christian communities whose total inhabitants number 
one hundred and sixty-five thousand, of whom seventy- 
five thousand are church members. It is a rule 
of the Rhenish society to exercise the greatest 
care in baptizing converts so that only those shall be 
accepted who are worthy and who understand the step 
which they are taking. 

The beautiful Island of Java to the 

Southeast of Sumatra has been called 

Holland's treasure house. Though the island has 



190 THE STORY OP LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

been under Christian control for three centuries the 
results of mission work do not make a very large 
showing. The largest of the Protestant Christian 
societies at work is the German Neukirchen Mission 
which has eleven principal stations, with twenty-nine 
workers. Java is inhabited chiefly by Mohammedans 
who have here a university and who have issued the 
Koran in the Javanese language. These Mohamme- 
dans are more willing to listen to the Gospel teach- 
ing than those in many other parts of the world. 
The Batoe O^ ^he Batoe Islands south of Nias, a 

Islands. Dutch Lutheran Missionary Society 

has a station with two missionaries and five hundred 
Christians. 

Australia. 

Originally the continent of Australia 
Destruction ^^^ occupied by Papuans, who have 

of the Native been gradually exterminated or driven 
Australians. . . ,—.. , . . 

into reservations. Ihe history of the 

Australian native affords a record of injustice and 
almost incredible cruelty. The first foreign settlers 
were a band of criminals quartered there by England ; 
then as the richness of the country became known, 
there arrived other settlers who with almost unthinka- 
ble barbarity dispossessed and murdered the natives, 
shooting them down like beasts, poisoning them in 
crowds, so that to-day the great expanse of Australia 
has within it not more than fifty five thousand Papuans. 



CHINA, JAPAN AND ISLANDS 191 

This little remnant is cared for by the govern- 
ment and to it go missionaries of various denomi- 
nations, among them those of the Neuendettelsaii 
Mission which has two stations, one at Elim-Hope in 
Queensland and another at Bethesda in South Aus- 
tralia. The Australian Immanuel Synod which is 
composed of Germans living in Australia has a station 
at New Hermannsburg in South Australia. 

New Guinea. 

Success Amid ^^ 1 886 the Neuendettelsau Society 
Danger. began to work in New Guinea. 

There in Kaiser Wilhelm's Land, which is a German 
protectorate, it has four stations. The climate is 
dangerous, the language difficult to learn, and the 
various tribes at enmity with one another. Neverthe- 
less the first fruits have been gathered, so that in 1909, 
three thousand six hundred Christians were reported. 
Thirty-five missionaries are on the field. 

To the work of this mission the Lutheran Synod 
of Iowa contributes. 

In Kaiser Wilhelm's Land there is also a mission of 
the Rhenish Society, which has three stations round 
Astrolabe Bay. 

Lutherans in the Near East. 

An Untilled *'The Mohammedan world, which ex- 

Field, tends over the whole of North Africa, 

part of southeast Europe, and from Arabia and Asia 
Minor, through Persia as far as China and the Dutch 



192 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

East Indies, and which numbers one hundred and ninety- 
six million five thousand adherents, is still almost 
entirely closed against the Gospel. This is true 
not only where there is Mohammedan rule, and 
where conversion to Christianity is by direction of the 
Koran punished with death, but also in the Christian 
colonial dominions of British and Dutch India. 
Missions to Mohammedans are carried on by societies 
and individuals, but considerable congregations have 
nowhere yet been formed from the confessors of Islam 
with the single exception of those in Java and Sumatra. 
. . . .Besides Mohammedan fanaticism, a special 
hindrance which has to be reckoned with is the un- 
fortunate connection of religion with politics. Not 
only are the Mohammedan governments inspired with 
the greatest distrust towards evangelical missionaries, 
as if they were the instigators of sedition, but missions 
are also impeded by the political jealousy of the 
Christian powers.'^ 

Thus wrote Doctor Warneck, the great Lutheran 
historian of missions in 1902! He went on to speak 
of the policies of Russia, England and Germany, 
which jealously forbade the touching of Turkey. The 
good man is no longer living — what would be his 
emotions if he could look in 191 7 upon the Near East 
and the confusion which political jealousy has wrought! 

The Lutheran Church has made but little effort 
either to revive the ancient Christian churches of the 
East, or to convert the Mohammedans. The most 
ambitious plans were those of the Basel Society whose 




OFFICERS AND TEACHERS OF LUTHERAN SUNDAY SCHOOL, 

NEW AMSTERDAM, BRITISH GUIANA. 
ITUNI SCHOOL IN SCHOOL ROOM WHICH IS ALSO THE 

CHURCH. 
SOME INDIAN MEMBERS OF ITUNI CONGREGATION. 



CHINA, JAPAN AND ISLANDS 193 

leader, Christian Frederic Spittler, dreamed of an 
apostolic road from Jerusalem to Gondar in Abyssinia. 
The early work of the Basel Society in Russia and 
Persia was ended by imperial command. 
A Lutheran Among the various German mission- 
Orphanage. ary enterprises in Palestine which draw 

a large part of their support from Lutheran sources, 
is the Syrian Orphanage outside Jerusalem, which for 
sixty-six years has been training children in useful 
trades. Here carpentry, joinery, printing, tailoring, 
shoe-making, blacksmithing and brick-making are 
taught. Its founder was Pastor Schneller, at whose 
death it was continued by his son. Now more than 
two hundred boys are enrolled, many of whom are 
confirmed in the Lutheran Church. A few years ago 
a school for the blind was added which received both 
boys and girls, who are taught basket-weaving, chair 
and brush-making. 

Another German enterprise which is partly Lu- 
theran is the German Orient Mission founded in 1895. 
From its printing press at Philipopolis it has issued 
translations of the New Testament and other reli- 
gious literature into Turkish. Two Turks who were 
converted were compelled to take refuge in Germany. 

The German Jerusalem Union has been at work 
since 1852. Its chief care Is for the German churches 
in Palestine, but it conducts also mission work in the 
old Christian Arab population. 

The German Jerusalem Association was founded in 
1889 for the benefit of the German Evangelical con- 



194 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

gregation in Jerusalem. This is in no sense a mis- 
sionary enterprise, but the fact that it is supported 
and authorized by the German government gives im- 
portance to all the German Lutheran work in Pales- 
tine. In 1898 the German Emperor and Empress 
were present at the dedication of the Church of 
the Redeemer, supported by this organization. This 
church building stands within the walls of the city 
not far from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. 

Schools and hospitals at Jerusalem, 

'^r^^T^^^ Beirut, Constantinople and Cairo are 

of Deaconesses. ' ^ 

supported and conducted by the Kai- 
serswerth Deaconesses, who for sixty years have labored 
in the East. The last report gave one hundred and 
twenty-eight as the number actively engaged. 

The Danish Lutherans have small stations in Syria, 
Asia Minor and Arabia. 

The Church of Sweden conducts a hospital in Beth- 
lehem. 

The only direct work by American Lutherans for 
the Near East is done through the small Intersynodical 
Orient Mission Society of the American Norwegians, 
Swedes and Germans, whose field is Kurdistan. The 
Joint Synod of Ohio supports a missionary in Persia, 
a vast and uncultivated field, where there is one mis- 
sionary to two hundred and twenty-one thousand of the 
population. There has also been another Lutheran 
Society at work, the Syro-Chaldean. 



CHINA, JAPAN AND ISLANDS 195 

A Lutheran ^^ ^^ doubtful whether all other enter- 
Scholar, prises for the conversion of the Jews 
have equalled in bulk or importance the work of a 
Lutheran, Dr. Franz Delitzsch, one of the most cel- 
ebrated scholars of his time, who was born in 1813, 
and who died in Leipsic in 1890. His greatest de- 
votion was given to mission work for the Jews, and 
for them he translated the New Testament into He- 
brew. The first chapters appeared in 1838; by 1888 
eighty thousand copies had been published. Though 
to millions of Jews the languages of the countries in 
which they sojourned had become familiar, yet to 
them religion and religious instruction could be given 
in no other tongue than the sacred Hebrew to which 
they were accustomed. 

Doctor Delitzsch's translation was not the first 
which had been made, but like Luther's translation of 
the Bible into German it far surpassed in accuracy 
and literary value all that had gone before. 

On account of his close friendship with the fathers 
of the Missouri Lutherans in this country, Doctor 
Delitzsch's name is a familiar one to a large part of 
the American Church. 

Beside his translation of the New Testament he 
contributed many other works to Hebrew literature, 
tracts upon various subjects, commentaries, and a 
monthly journal. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Lutheran Foreign Missions on the 
Western Continent 

South America 

Porto Rico 

The American Indian 

Alaska 

The American Negro 

Conclusion. 



The Land. 



Chapter VI. 

LUTHERAN FOREIGN MISSIONS ON THE WESTERN 
CONTINENT 

South America. 

To a large proportion of the Americans 
who are interested in missions Asia and 
Africa are better known than the great continent of 
South America which lies so much nearer. Of the 
physical features of South America it is necessary to 
speak in superlative terms. Here is the largest river 
in the world, the Amazon, with thirty thousand miles 
of navigable waterway, here are the densest forests, 
here is the greatest mountain range. The continent is 
five thousand miles long and at its broadest point, 
three thousand miles wide. Its long coast line offers 
splendid harbors; its interior table lands abundant 
minerals and metals and a fertile soil. 

For many centuries the Indian held South America 
for his own. Unmolested from without, troubled only 
by quarrels with his neighbors, he lived and died for 
the most in slothful ignorance. 

This quiet was interrupted when the 
Immiera^nts Spaniards and Portugese took posses- 

sion of the country by right of con- 
quest. Once opened to the world, the continent be- 
came the destination of thousands of settlers, not only 



200 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

from Spain and Portugal but from other European 
nations, many of whom built up large fortunes. The 
relation between them and the natives is described by 
R. J. Hunt. "Some of the early colonists were of a 
friendly disposition, and treated the natives kindly, 
much in the same way as they did their horses or their 
dogs; others, with a high sense of honor, were just and 
considerate to the aboriginees ; a fair percentage of 
them, especially those in the wild, remote districts, 
freely mingled with the natives and married one or 
more of their women; but the great majority looked 
upon the natives with suspicion and distrust if not 
with abhorrence. 

'With the influx of immigrants and 
The Opening the natural increase of the descendants 
of the Country, of the pioneers came the growth of 

trade, the extension of agricultural pur- 
suits, and the opening of mines. There came simul- 
taneously the desire for independence and the conse- 
quent rise of republics with a demand for progress 
and a clear determination of territorial bounds. Rail- 
ways were opened in various directions, the great rivers 
were supplied with steamers, trade was increased, com- 
panies were formed and numerous interests started. 
For scientific and commercial purposes expeditions up 
the great waterways and across the trackless plains 
were organized and carried out with varying success; 
but even to-day there remain vast regions unknown 
and unexplored except by the red Indians."* 

^Missionary Re'vieiv of the World, July 191 1. 




LUTHERAN CHAPEL, MONACILLO, PORTO RICO, WITH TWO 
MISSIONARIES AND TWO NATIVE WORKERS. 



PORTO RICAN HUT WITH MISS MELLANDER AND THREE 
MEMBERS OF CHURCH AT PALO SECO. 



THE WESTERN CONTINENT 201 

In spite of the fact that its ten politi- 
The Darkness cal divisions are republics, and that it 
America. ^^^ produced men of distinguished 

rank as scientists and scholars, South 
America is on the whole a land of dense ignorance, 
not only among the Indian population but among the 
mixed or pure descendants of the European settlers. 
In spiritual things the ignorance is tenfold increased. 
Of the hundreds of tribes of Indians, many have never 
heard the Gospel, and to only ten millions of the popu- 
lation has it been presented in any intelligible form. 
Rome, which has claimed South America for its own 
has done little to raise the natives from their degraded 
condition or to enlighten their darkness, and has op- 
posed most bitterly the spread of the pure Gospel 
among them. The priests declare that the Protestant 
Bible is an immoral book which will do great harm to 
him who reads, and make every effort to destroy all the 
copies v/hich they can find. Nor do they offer their 
own version. Doctor Robert Speer is reported to have 
said that visiting seventy of the largest cathedrals in 
South America, he could find but one Bible, and that 
a Protestant version, about to be burned. Of the re- 
ligious condition. Doctor Warneck says, *'The Cathol- 
icism is of a kind that, according to even Catholic 
testimonies, is more heathen than Christian. There 
are many crosses but no word of the Cross; many 
saints, but no followers of Christ." 

Against the domination of the Catholic Church 
the most intelligent of the population have rebelled 



202 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

and men especially have ceased to believe in the priests 
or their teaching. May they upon leaving the old 
find true guides into new and better things! 
Xhe The latest statistics give the following 

Population. ^g ^-^g population of South America: 

Whites 18,000,000 

Indians 17,000,000 

Negroes 6,000,000 

Mixed White and Indian 30,000,000 

Mixed White and Negro 8,000.000 

Mixed Negro and Indian 700,000 

East Indian, Japanese and Chinese. . . 300,000 

A total of 80,000,000 

Since South America offers vast resources in a 
sparsely settled country, its population will unquestion- 
ably increase rapidly by immigration. 

Recent activity on the part of the 

The Roman Protestants in the interest of the nomi- 

Catholic 

Church in nal Christians of South America has 

South roused much opposition among Roman 

America. ^ ^^ ^ 

Catholics. Among Protestants them- 
selves the question has been debated with an earnest 
desire to see the right and wrong of this problem. To 
this question Dr. Robert Speer has given the fol- 
lowing reasons for his belief that such mission work 
io legitimate and necessary, (i) The moral condi- 
tion of South America warrants and demands the pres- 
ence of the force of evangelical religion in a country 
where from one-fourth to one-half of the births are 



THE WESTERN CONTINENT 203 

illegitimate and where male chastity is unknown. 
(2) The Protestant missionary enterprise with its 
stimulus to education and its appeal to the rational 
nature of man is required by the intellectual needs of 
South America. (3) Protestant missions are justified 
in order to give the Bible to South America. (4) 
Protestant missions are justified by the character of 
the Roman Catholic priesthood. (5) The Roman 
Church has not given the people Christianity. It 
offers them a dead man, not a living Saviour. (6) 
The Catholic Church has steadily lost ground; the 
priests are reviled and derided; religion is abandoned 
by men to priests and women. (7) Protestant mis- 
sions may inspire and compel self-cleansing in the 
South American Catholic Church. (8) Only the 
Protestant religion, free from superstition, reformed. 
Scriptural, apostolic, can meet the needs of South 
America. 

The missionary occupation of South America has 
been small ; indeed no country has so low a percentage 
of missionaries. It is said that in any of the ten coun- 
tries a missionary could have a city and a dozen of 
towns for his parish. In some of the countries he could 
have one or two provinces without touching any other 
evangelical worker. 

As Lutheran missionaries in the person of Ziegenbalg 
and Pliitschau were the first to enter India; as Peter 
Heiling, a Lutheran, was the first to enter Africa, so 
the Lutheran missionary Justinian von Welz, of whose 
stirring appeal to the Church we have told in Chapter 



204 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

I, entered South America, where in Surinam he died 
in 1668. It gives us at least some small comfort to 
realize that of all the South American countries Suri- 
nam is to-day the most thoroughly evangelized, even 
though it is the Moravian and not the Lutheran 
Church w^hich has done the work. After the time of 
Justinian von Welz we search in vain for Lutheran 
missions in South America for many years. 

Among the emigrants to South Amer- 
Lutherans ^^^ have been large numbers of Ger- 

in South mans. For these the Church at home 

America. , 111 n 

has cared so that there are many well- 
established Lutheran " congregations. Here and there 
these congregations have undertaken a little missionary 
work among the natives, but there has been no or- 
ganized effort for their evangelization as in the case 
of Africa and Asia. 

American Lutherans have one mission 
North Ameri- in South America, that of the General 

irsouth^''^''^ ^^''^^ ^^ ^^^ Amsterdam in British 
America. Guiana, a colony with a population of 

about three hundred thousand of which 
about four thousand are Europeans, the remainder 
East Indians, negroes and native Indians. In 1743 
Dutch and German Lutherans founded here a Luth- 
eran church which continued for a hundred years. 
Then, the congregation having fallen away, service was 
discontinued. The property consisted of a beautiful old 
church, a church house and parsonage, a good deal of 
valuable land and an endowment of twenty thousand 



THE WESTERN CONTINENT 205 

dollars. In 1878 the church was again opened and the 
Rev. John R. Mittelholzer became its pastor, and the 
congregation united with the General Synod. 

The Missouri Synod has eighty-three congregations 
among the Germans in Brazil and Argentine, a theo- 
logical seminary and many schools. Some of its pas- 
tors work among the Portugese speaking natives. 

Of various recent plans for Lutheran work in South 
America it is still too soon to speak. 

The appeal of South America to the Lutheran 
Church is thus expressed by those who have studied 
the subject. 

"Among the population of South America German 
and Scandinavian Lutherans are present in larger pro- 
portion than the members of any other Protestant de- 
nomination. 

jT ^Yi "•'■^ Montevideo, Uruguay, there is a 

Lutheran colony of five hundred German fami- 

Sportun"ty in ^'^'- ^^ ^o^^^'^' ^ere are also many of 
South our people. In Chili there are eighty 

America. thousand Germans. They are numer- 

ous in Bogota and Barronquilla, Colombia, and in 
Gautemala, where Roman priests are prosecuted and 
Protestant ministers welcomed by those in authority. 
In Brazil, which is 220,000 square miles larger than 
the entire United States, the Statesman s Year Book 
declares that there are one million Germans, besides 
many Scandinavians. In Paraguay, President Schierer 
IS a German, and there are at least two hundred 
thousand of our people. In fact, there is not a 



206 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

State or island of this vast domain where our 
people are not found as sheep without a shepherd. 
They occupy prominent and influential positions in 
government, and are dominant in the business world. 
Once interested, they would furnish the means 
and the men to care for our own, and extend the work 
among the intellectuals, the peons, the Indians, and 
the negroes of Latin America. Our Lutheran Church 
has the largest opportunity, consequently the greatest 
obligation, of all the Protestant Churches in these 
southern lands/' 

Porto Rico. 

In Porto Rico, where many of the conditions of 
South America are repeated on a much smaller scale, 
nine Protestant churches are at work. Since the island 
is under the control of the United States, missions have 
no political opposition to meet. Here, as in South 
America, the natives have many crosses but no true 
cross, many saints but few true believers in Christ. A 
missionary relates a discussion between two members 
of the native church, one of whom worshiped the Vir- 
gin who was supposed to dwell at Lourdes, another a 
Virgin who dwelt at some other shrine. Of Christ they 
knew nothing. 

Here the General Council has had a mission since 
1899. It has in all nine congregations and twelve 
stations with more than five hundred communicant 
members. Among its stations are Catano, San Juan 
and Bayamon where it owns fine church properties 



THE WESTERN CONTINENT 207 

and has excellent parochial schools. In Catano there 
is a kindergarten in connection with the parochial 
school to which Miss May Mellander has given years 
of devoted service. In Catano the missionaries in- 
struct native teachers. 

The experience of the General Council in Porto 
Rico has been that of all workers in Latin America. 
They have discovered that the Roman Catholic Church 
has lost its hold on the people and that thousands are 
longing for a better way. 

The American Indian. 

The American Indian was so called, as we know, 
from the fact that the discoverers of this continent 
supposed they had reached the eastern coast of India. 
Indians belong to one race, though they call them- 
selves by many different tribal names. How large 
their number was before the advent of the white man 
it is impossible to tell; now, greatly diminished by 
w^ars among themselves, by oppression, by diseases 
brought from abroad and especially by the white man's 
brandy, they number about three hundred thousand. 
Of these the majority live in reservations appointed to 
them by the government of the United States whose 
later policy has been to care for them with such 
thoroughness that for most of them independent de- 
velopment is difficult. It is reckoned that among the 
three hundred thousand about ninety-two thou- 
sand are Christians. These are reliable, sober and 
settled. Almost none of the Indians educated in the 



208 THE STORY OP LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

Christian schools return to the habits of their fore- 
fathers. 

The work of the Lutheran Church among the In- 
dians began, as we have seen, in the Swedish settle- 
ment along the Deleware River. In Georgia the 
work of the Salzburgers was closed by the re- 
moval of the Indians, an almost inevitable con- 
summation in the days when the Indians were con- 
stantly shifting in flight or by compulsion from place 
to place. The Rev. J. C. Hartwig, one of the pioneer 
ministers of the American Lutheran Church who died 
in 1796 left his property, amounting to about seventeen 
thousand dollars for the establishing of a training 
school (Hartwick Seminary) for ministers and mis- 
sionaries. He had in mind especially missionaries 
who should work among the American Indians. The 
school was established and when application was made 
to the government to begin work among the Indians 
of Otsego County, New York, President Washington 
answered that a special act of Congress would be re- 
quired before permission could be given. 

Among the unconverted Indians the Lutheran 
Church is at work in various places to-day. 

The Norwegian Synod has had a mission among 
the Winnebago Indians in Wisconsin since 1885. For 
its support they contributed in 191 5, $6,000. 
Here also Elling's Synod of the Norwegian Church 
has a mission. 

In Arizona the Missouri Synod has a mission. 



THE WESTERN CONTINENT 209 

In Arizona the Wisconsin Synod has four mission 
stations — at Globe, a town of about eight thousand 
inhabitants, at Peridot on the San Carlos Indian Res- 
ervation, at East Fork, and at Cibecue. The com- 
munity at East Fork has been recently visited with 
serious epidemics, but the tv/enty-five children in the 
Lutheran school all survived and were able to return. 
The village of Cibecue lies far from the railroad and 
the Indians there have not been affected by the vices 
of civilization. Here it was not possible during the 
last year to receive all the children who came. 

The Danish Synod has been at work in Oklahoma 
since 1892. It contributed in 191 5, $2,500 to this mis- 
sion. 

Alaska. 

Alaska is the name given to the northwestern cor- 
ner of North America which was bought by the United 
States from Russia in 1867. Its area is about five 
hundred and ninety thousand square miles and is equal 
to that of all the northern States east of the 
Mississippi with the addition of Virginia, West Vir- 
ginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. The population in 
1890 was sixty-three thousand, of whom twenty- 
five thousand were Indians and Esquimaux. The 
natives are superstitious and devoted to the v/orship 
of departed spirits. Though the North of Alaska is 
uninhabitable, the South has a temperate Summer. 

Here the Norwegian Synod began missionary work 
in 1894 at Port Clarance. The mission was begun in 



210 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

buildings furnished by the United States government, 
which had suggested the undertaking. The first mis- 
sionary, the Rev, T. L. Brevig, not only served the 
colony of Norwegians and Lapps, but went promptly 
to work among the native Esquimaux. 

The Synod of Wisconsin has four or five ordained 
ministers in Alaska. 

The American Negro. 

The American Negro offers to the American Chris- 
tian Church one of its most pressing responsibilities. 
Brought to this country against his will, held for many 
years in slavery in which independent development 
was out of the question, then by political necessity given 
in addition to his freedom the right to help govern 
the country in which he had been a slave, he has fur- 
nished for himself and for the white race a problem 
like no other problem in the world. 

Before the Civil War the Christianization of the 
negro was carried on by pious individuals, many of 
them slave-holders and by various churches. There 
were in i860 before the outbreak of the war about 
half a million negro Christians, belonging chiefly to 
the Baptist and Methodist churches. This num- 
ber has increased until to-day a conservative estimate 
would fix the number of Christian negroes at seven 
and a half million. 

Another motive than the desire to win the negro 
for the kingdom of God has entered into much of the 
philanthropic work undertaken by the white race. This 



THE WESTERN CONTINENT 211 

is the realization of the menace to the State from so 
large an uneducated, uncivilized and alien race within 
it. 

That the negro is capable of profiting by educa- 
tion and capable of becoming a valuable citizen is 
proved in many ways, not the least remarkable of 
which is his progress in religious matters. It is said 
that no other people give a larger percentage of their 
earnings to religious work. Over eight per cent of 
the total wealth of the negro church is vested in its 
church properties. Late reports mention four large 
publishing houses which issue only negro church lit- 
erature. All the important negro churches now 
maintain home and foreign missionary departments, 
which contribute over $50,000 a year to foreign mis- 
sions, over $100,000 to home missions, employ two 
hundred missionaries and give aid to three hundred and 
fifty needy churches. 

The conditions which make it imperative that the 
American should raise his negro associate are expressed 
by Booker Washington. *'When I was a boy I was 
the champion fighter of my town. I used to love 
to hold the boys down in the ditch and hear them 
5^ell. When I grew older, I found that I could not 
hold another boy down in the ditch without staying 
there with him. Nor can any race hold another down 
in the ditch without staying down in the ditch with it. 
Those white Christians who fear the rise of the negro 
to intellectual and material independence may put 



212 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

their fear aside if they give him with education the 
Christian religion." 

The early Lutheran pastors in America showed a 
practical interest in the spiritual welfare of the ne- 
groes. In 1704, the Rev. Justus Falckner baptized 
the daughter of negroes who were members of the 
first Lutheran congregation in New York. The beau- 
tiful prayer which he made upon this occasion has been 
recorded. 

*'Lord, merciful God, Thou who regardeth not the 
persons of men, but, in every nation, he that feareth 
Thee and doeth right is accepted before Thee; clothe 
this child with the white garment of innocence and 
righteousness, and let it so remain, through Jesus 
Christ, the Redeemer and Saviour of all men." 

The Rev. Dr. John Bachman, pastor of St. John's 
Lutheran Church, Charleston, South Carolina, had 
many negroes in his congregation. He sent to Gettys- 
burg Seminary, Daniel Payne, a colored man who after- 
wards became a bishop of the African Methodist 
Church. 

The Lutheran Church is represented in work for 
negroes by the Synodical Conference, which is com- 
posed of the synods of Missouri, Wisconsin, Minne- 
sota, Michigan and Nebraska, and various smaller 
bodies. It resolved in 1877 to take up work among 
the negroes, its first missionary being the Rev. J. F. 
Doescher, who began his activity at a missionary gath- 
ering at New Wells, Missouri. Travelling through 
Arkansas, Tennessee, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mis- 



THE WESTERN CONTINENT 213 

sissippi and Louisiana, he preached wherever he could 
find opportunity, in cities and villages and also on 
large plantations. His work was continued by other 
missionaries and by the Lutheran churches near by. 
In 19 14 there were forty-six preaching places served 
by forty-nine laborers, thirty-one of whom are col- 
ored. The total membership of baptized Christians 
was two thousand four hnndred and thirty four. 

As early as possible in the history of this work it 
was determined to educate young men to be preachers 
and teachers and young women to be teachers in the 
colored mission. The first promising boys were sent 
to Springfield, Illinois, to be trained. In 1903, Im- 
manuel College, the first colored Lutheran college was 
established in Greensboro, North Carolina. Begin- 
ning in a school house, the college is now at home in 
a large stone building which was dedicated in 1907. 
In New Orleans the Mission supports Luther Col- 
lege. To both of these institutions women are ad- 
mitted. The six women graduates from the Teacher's 
Course of Luther College and the eight women grad- 
uates from the Teacher's Course of Immanuel College 
have given the mission valuable service as teachers. 

In the thirty-five years of its history the Synodical 
Conference has raised $525,000 for the work of the 
colored mission. About $30,000 of this sum has been 
raised by the colored churches themselves. The an- 
nual expenses of the mission work are now about 
$30,000 per year. To its funds the Norwegian 
Synod contributes. 



214 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

The Joint Synod of Ohio became interested in the 
work for negroes in 1890, when the first colored pastor 
was received into its membership and a committee 
was appointed to take charge of the work. Until 191 1 
the undertaking was limited to one small congrega- 
tion in Baltimore, then an advance was made in the 
establishing of a mission school and the securing of 
candidates for the ministry. In 19 15 activity was ex- 
tended into the heart of the South and work was begun 
in Jackson, Mississippi. A desirable church property 
has been secured and a parochial school is conducted. 
In 1 91 6 a school was established in Prattville, Ala- 
bama. In all there are about one hundred confirmed 
members, two hundred children in three parochial 
schools, one superintendent, one colored pastor and 
three teachers. 

Conclusion. 

A study of Lutheran or other missions would be 
a vain and useless undertaking if it did not leave 
the student with his eyes upon the future instead of 
upon the past, if it did not in the light of what others 
have done show him his own duty toward the millions 
still untouched. As a work of individuals. Christian 
missions may truly be said to be a magnificent accom- 
plishment; as a work of great denominational bodies 
of Christians the result is small. The adding of fig- 
ure to figure may seem to produce enormous totals. 
As we have added the seventy thousand Christians of 
the Gossner mission in India, the twenty thousand of 



THE WESTERN CONTINENT 215 

the Basel mission, the fifty thousand of the American 
Lutheran mission and others until we had a total of 
two hundred and sixteen thousand Indian Lutheran 
Christians, we have said to ourselves that the work was 
well begun. When the total number of Protestant 
Christians in India has been estimated at three million 
five hundred thousand we have felt a thrill of pride. 
But India has a population of three hundred million! 
Truly our beginning is small! In Africa the Protes- 
tant Christians number about one million seven hun- 
dred thousand; and the population one hundred and 
eighty million; in South Amerca the Protestant Chris- 
tians number two hundred thousand and the population 
eighty million ! China, Japan, the vast Mohammedan 
East — to what a task does a study of missions open our 
eyes! 

For this task our study should give us determination 
and courage. Though the results have seemed small, 
they have been, in comparison to the number of work- 
ers, enormous. We observe a thickly settled section of 
India, a few men and women, — preachers, a medical 
missionary, a few nurses, — -around them in seventy years 
fifty thousand Christians! Were our Lutheran Church 
really to awake, how rapidly and yet how thoroughly 
could the work be done! Those who have gone be- 
fore us have opened the doors, ours is the opportunity 
to enter. It is estimated that in India one of every 
four inquirers for truth is knocking at the door of 
a Lutheran mission. Africa lies open to whoever 
will possess her, in China our standard bearers have 



216 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

claimed a great territory; South America is ours by 
right of first possession. This opportunity is not one 
which may be seized or rejected; thus clearly presented 
it becomes a responsibility. 

Another promise for the future is the material aid 
which the Church will receive from those whom she 
has converted and trained. In her fields in China, in In- 
dia, in South Africa, a native Church is being slowly 
moulded. The Christian courage in the Boxer up- 
rising proves that China can stand fast. Likewise 
did the great mutiny show the devotion of thousands of 
Indian Lutherans to the Christian religion. Wher- 
ever there are converts there are candidates for Chris- 
tian service. A story told by Rev. C. F. Kuder of 
the Rajahmundry mission is rich in suggestion for us 
all. 

A New Definition. 

"Four hundred Lutherans were assembled in one of 
our annual conferences in India. Missionary Eckardt, 
who is the Livingstone of our Mission, was speaking. 
He has gone farther inland than any of his prede- 
cessors had gone. His district embraces three hundred 
thousand people, who have no hope of hearing the 
Gospel unless he brings it to them. 

"He stood up that day at the conference, and said 
that up in the hills, where there were a number of 
Christians, but more heathen, a hill had been given him 
by a heathen, on condition that a church would be built 
on it. He said that it would be a center for all the 



# 







I 11 11 




IMMANUEL COLORED LUTHERAN COLLEGE, GREENSBORO, 
NORTH CAROLINA. 

BETHANY INDIAN MISSION BAND, WITTENBERG, WISCONSIN. 
(NORWEGIAN SYNOD) 



THE WESTERN CONTINENT 217 

Christians in that locality, and a constant call to the 
heathen to come to the living God. The difficulty 
was: how to get the money to build the church? He 
did not want to ask the Christians in America for it; 
so he asked whether our Christians in India would not 
help him? 

"The conference listened with interest and sympathy. 
The hill-country had for years been its home mission 
field. After much casting about for some satisfactory 
method, the suggestion was made that all the Chris- 
tians be asked to practice self-denial from Ash Wed- 
nesday to Palm Sunday, bringing their free-will offer- 
ings to the service on Palm Sunday. 

"When the proposition was announced to the Rajah- 
mundry congregation, the interested faces, quickened 
eyes, and, in some cases, the tucking of heads to one 
side, all bespoke approval and willingness to help. 

"And what did the members do? They cut off a 
little here and a little there ; true, only a little, for if 
it had been much, there would not have been anything 
left for themselves. More than a little would have 
been all. 

"There were women who were widows in the con- 
gregation, whose income was about five cents a day. 
With that they had to provide food, clothing and, in 
some cases, shelter. Of course, it goes without say- 
ing that living in India is very cheap, but it goes equally 
well without saying that such widows do not live on 
broiled pigeons, peacocks' tongues, and other delica- 
cies. The truth is, that they must practice self-de- 



218 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

nial, not only in Lent, but throughout the year. They 
rarely are able to have enough to eat to satisfy hunger 
fully. It IS estimated that over sixty million people 
in India go to bed hungry every night. 

"But what did they do? In the evenings, when they 
measured out their rice, they would say to themselves : 
'I must help to build that little church up in the hills, 
so that the women up there may learn to know my 
Redeemer. I could eat all this rice, but if I can live 
with so much, I can also live on a few mouthfuls 
less. I'll give up a little rice cheerfully, so they may 
have that meat which perisheth not.' 

'^Then they would take out a pinch of the raw rice 
and put it aside in a bowl for safe-keeping. This they 
did until Palm Sunday. Then they measured the rice 
saved and brought its value to the Lord. 

"No, it was not much — probably, in most cases, not 
more than ten cents — but it was given of their neces- 
sity — taken out of their mouths. 

"In the boys' school were some one hundred and 
sixty boys, from about nine to fifteen years of age. 
Money? They had so little they scarcely knew the 
color of it; but deep down in their hearts was an 
earnest desire. They, too, felt they must help to build 
the little church on the hills ! 

"One evening, a day or two before Ash Wednesday, 
the manager heard many voices at the door of the 
teacher who had charge of the boarding department. 
There was an interested consultation, and then he 
heard the boys troop back to their rooms with many 



THE WESTERN CONTINENT 219 

little shouts of gratulation and glee, and many a 
''hagunnadi' (it is good). 

"The next morning the teacher came to the manager 
with a queer smile. 

*^What were the boys up to last night?' queried 
the latter. 

" ^They asked for permission to go without their sup- 
per once a week, on condition that the money saved 
be given them for the little church up in the hills,' 
was the reply. 

" *What did you say to them ?' 

" 'I said they might, if you consented.' 

" 'Oh, said the manager, *I think it will not hurt 
them. Let them try it; but we must keep a watch 
on them that they do not get sick.' 

*' 'Yes,' replied the teacher, 'but they were not satis- 
fied with that. They worked out how much it would 
make, and this morning they came back to request 
that they be allowed to go without supper twice a 
week!' 

"The manager, catching their enthusiasm, said, 'Let 
them try it.' 

"Growing boys have hearty appetites, and it was not 
easy for those lads to go to sleep supperless every Tues- 
day and Thursday evening during those weeks, but 
there was never a murmur. 

"Palm Sunday came. No one ever saw brighter- 
eyed boys than those who walked to church that morn- 
ing from our school. When the offerings were re- 
ceived, they put a solid lump of silver coins on the 



220 THE STORY OF LUTHERAN MISSIONS 

plate. It contained twenty-five rupees — eight dollars 
and thirty-three cents. 

**The girls in their school had been securing an offer- 
ing in a similar way, and they brought only thirty 
cents less. 

"That day there was laid on the plate a total offer- 
ing of ninety dollars! 

^^Thts is the Telugu Lutheran definition of self -de- 
nial/' 

If the devotion of the Church at home even dis- 
tantly approached such devotion as this how quickly 
might the work be accomplished ! 

The world is still overshadowed by the apparently 
impenetrable cloud of a great war. The condition of 
hundreds of mission stations is a matter for serious 
anxiety. When the war closes it is likely that there 
will be new boundaries, British colonies now Ger- 
man colonies, or German colonies now British colonies. 
Each change of this kind will bring into existence 
new complications for missionary policy to meet. The 
Christian Church will need faith and courage to take 
up a task so sadly interrupted and marred. 

It is certain, on the other hand, that the Church 
will have access to new mission fields. Such has been 
the single gleam of brightness through many war 
clouds in the past. 

For the Church of Christ the war has a lesson which 
must be learned. There is but one cure for war — the 
evangelization of the world. May all the Christian 
world by missionary effort prevent the repetition of so 



THE WESTERN CONTINENT 221 

terrible a catastrophe ! May especially our own Church 
come daily into a clearer realization of her mission! 
As the time of Christ and his apostles was a time of 
seed-sowing, so was the time of the Reformation. By 
Martin Luther the world was shown once more the 
Way of Salvation. By Martin Luther the Holy Bi- 
ble, the infallible guide, was put once more into the 
hands of mankind, so that true religion and true liberty 
might be forever preserved. Let us look well to our 
ways that after the seed-sowing may come the harvest. 



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